94 THE GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



The quantity made by the ancient Egyptians 

 must have been very great, judging by the 

 number of rolls often found in the tombs and 

 mummy cases. In the museum of Naples, there 

 are nearly one thousand eight 'hundred MSS. 

 of this description, which have been dug out of 

 a small part of the city of Herculaneum, whence 

 tht> number that must have existed in the 

 Roman empire at that time may in some degree 

 be imagined. The papyrus is doubtless the 

 plant alluded to in Scripture as the bulrush, 

 of which the ark was made for the infant Moses, 

 (Exod. ii. 3,) and also the vessels of bulrushes in 

 which men sailed, (Isa. xviii. 2.) Pliny notices 

 " ships made of papyrus ; " and in another place 

 he sa} 7 s, " of the papyrus itself they construct 

 sailing-vessels." 



It is singular that, even at the present day, 

 the leaves of the date palm are used to form 

 a sailing-vessel, which is much employed in 

 crossing the Tigris. They are woven into a 

 kind of basket-work, and are thickly coated 

 with bitumen to render them water-proof. 

 Egypt was once celebrated as the granary of 

 Europe, and was the most fertile country in the 

 world. In Gen. xli. 47, it is said, that during 

 the seven years of plenty, u the earth brought 

 forth by handfuls," that is, probably, each 

 stalk produced as much as the hand could 

 grasp. Such productiveness, or even more, is 

 not unusual at this day. Mr. Jowett pulled, 

 at random, a few plants from a corn-field 

 in Egypt, to ascertain how many stems grew 



