INVENTION 01' PAl'EU. 177 



old MSS. in the King's Library, at Paris in the reign of Henry the 

 Second, always calls the article " Damascus paper ." The subsequent 

 invention of paper made from hemp or jlax, has given rise to equal 

 controversy; Mafiei and Tiraboschi have claimed the honor on behalf of 

 Italy, and Scaliger and Meumann for Germany; but none of these 

 writers adduce any instance of its use anterior to the 14th century. By 

 "ar the oldest in France is a letter from Joinville to St. Louis, which was 

 written a short time before the decease of that monarch, in 1270. Ex- 

 amples of the use of modern paper in Spain date from a century before 

 that time, and it may be sufficient to quote from the numerous instances 

 cited by Don Gregorio Mayans, a treaty of peace concluded between 

 Alfonso the 2nd of Aragon and Alfonso the 9th of Castille, which is 

 preserved in the archives at Barcelona, and bears date in the year 1178 ; 

 to this we may add, \hefueros (privileges) granted to Valencia by James 

 the Conqueror, in 1251. The paper in question came from the Arabs, 

 who, on their arrival in Spain, where both silk and cotton were equally 

 rare, made it of hemp and flax. Their first manufactories were 

 established at Xativa, the San Felipi of the present day, a town of high 

 repute in ancient times, as Pliny and Strabo report, for its fabrication of 

 cloth. Edrisi observes, when speaking of Xativa, " Excellent and 

 incomparable paper is likewise made here." 



Valencia too, the plains of which produce an abundance of flax, 

 possessed manufactories a short time afterwards ; and Catalonia was not 

 long in following the example. Indeed, the two latter places at this 

 moment furnish the best paper in Spain. The use of the article made 

 from flax did not reach Castille, until the reign of Alphonso the Xth, in 

 the middle of the thirteenth century, and thence, it cannot be questioned, 

 it spread to France, and afterwards to Italy, England and Germany. 

 The Arabic MSS., which are of much older date than the Spanish, 

 were most of them written on satin paper, and embellished with a 

 quantity of ornamental work, painted in such gay and resplendent colors 

 that the reader might behold his face reflected as if from a mirror. 



MATERIALS FOR PAPER MAKING. 



The rags of our own country do not furnish a fifth part of what we 

 consume in the manufacture of paper. France, Holland, and Belgium, 

 prohibit under heavy penalties the exportation of rags, because they 

 require them for their own long established manufactories. Spain and 

 Portugal also prohibit their exportation. Italy and Germany furnish 



