MATERIALS USED FOR PAPER. 131 



appears, that at a date immediately subsequent, the 

 priests and monks substituted parchment. 



The Papyrus (Cypenis papyrus') is an aquatic 

 plant ; its roots are large and tortuous ; its stem 

 is triangular, gradually tapering as it shoots up grace- 

 fully to the height of fifteen or twenty feet, where it 

 is very slender and is surmounted by a fibrous tuft 

 of fine filaments, which are again subdivided into 

 others, bearing small seedy flowerets ; the whole of 

 the umbel forming a beautiful flowing plume. 



Paper was made from the inner bark of the stem 

 of the papyrus, which was divided into thin plates 

 or pellicles, each of them as large as the plant would 

 admit. The plates obtained near the centre were 

 the best, and each cut diminished in value in pro- 

 portion as it was distant from that part of the stem. 

 When carefully separated from the reed, and trimmed 

 and smoothed at the sides that the pieces might 

 meet equally, these plates or strata were laid close 

 together, and touching each other, on a hard flat 

 table; and then, other pieces, similarly cut, were 

 laid across them at right angles. They thus formed 

 a sheet of many pieces, which required adhesion to 

 become one united substance. To promote this, the 

 whole was moistened with the water of the Nile, and 

 while wet pressed closely together for some time. 

 After the pressure they were dried in the sun and 

 the sheet was made. 



It was long supposed that the muddy waters of 

 the Nile had a glutinous quality which promoted the 

 firm adhesion or incorporation of these separate 

 strips; but this, it appears, is not the case, nor does 

 the papyrus stand in need of any such aid, having a 

 glutinous quality of its own, which suffices for the 

 purpose. 



Bruce states that he made paper from the papyrus, 

 both in Abyssinia and in Egypt, and ascertained that 



