gS LECTURE X. 



by the Phenicians. Among the Greeks it was in a very imperfect state until 

 the time of the siege of Troy, or about 3000 years ago. The Chinese write 

 from above downwards, beginning on the riglit side; the other eastern na- 

 tions have always written from right to left. The most ancient Greek in- 

 scriptions are turned alternately backwards and forwards, the letters being re- 

 versed in the lines which begin on the right side; but the Greeks soon con- 

 fined themselves to that mode, which has been since adopted by all European 

 nations, and which appears to be in itself the most natural, at least for writ- 

 ing with a pen, and with the right hand. 



The earliest methods of writing were probably such as rather deserve the 

 name of engraving; the letters being cut in stone, in wood, on sheets of lead, 

 on bark, or on leaves. For temporary purposes, they were formed on tablets 

 of wax, with a point called a stile, and this practice was long continued for 

 epistolary correspondence, and was not wholly out of use in the fourteenth 

 century. The stile was made of metal or of bone; its upper extremity was 

 flattened, for the purpose of erasing what had been written. The Egyptian 

 papyius is said by Varro to have been first used for. writing, at the time of 

 the foundation of Alexandria; the leaves of palms, the inner bark of trees,' 

 or sometimes linen cloth, having been before employed. The exportation of 

 the papyrus was forbidden by Ptolemy, and in consequence of this prohibition, 

 skins of parchment, or of vellum, were first applied to the purpose of writing 

 at Pergamus, for the library of king Eumenes, whence they were called mem- 

 brana pergamena. To make the best paper, the widest and finest leaves of the 

 papyrus were matted together, united b}' a vegetable glue, and pressed till 

 they became sufficiently smooth; the coarser kinds were not used for writing, 

 but for commercial purposes. In China, paper is sometimes made of a thin 

 and almost transparent membrane taken from the bark of a tree. Paper of 

 cotton was introduced into Europe from the east in the middle ages : it has 

 been since superseded by that which is made of linen rags, and which is also 

 an eastern invention ; but for coarse and strong paper, old ropes of hemp are 

 also used ; and sometimes many other vegetable substances have been employed. 

 The strength and consistence of paper is owing to the lateral adhesion derived 

 from the intermixture of the fibres, assisted by the glutinous size, which is 

 also of use in obviating the bibulous cpiality of the paper, by filling up its 

 pores. 



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