SCIENCE IN THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD 



day. In short, every civilized nation is discovered, at 

 the very dawn of its history, in full possession of a system 

 of book-making; each nation having, seemingly, acted 

 under the stress of necessity in selecting a material made 

 accessible by its surroundings. 



It is equally impossible to decide the question as to 

 whether one nation borrowed from another in develop- 

 ing the idea of book-making. The diversity of material 

 does not suggest such borrowing, and it would seem that 

 such widely separated nations as, for example, the 

 Aztecs of Mexico, the Egyptians, and the Hindus, could 

 not greatly have influenced one another, unless, indeed, 

 the origin of books dates back to a period when all of 

 these nations were still members of the same prehis- 

 toric body politic, a supposition which is not altogether 

 gratuitous, but which carries us too far into the realm 

 of conjecture to be pursued further here. 



Limiting our view strictly to the historic period, we 

 find, as has been said, the five types of books in general 

 use. We have now to consider briefly the distinguishing 

 characteristics of each of these types, before going on to 

 note the steps of development through which the modern 

 book was evolved. First let us give attention to the 

 papyrus roll of the Egyptians. As has been said, this 

 type of book was employed in Egypt from the earliest 

 day of the historical period. As is well known, papyrus 

 is a species of primitive paper the word paper being, 

 indeed, a derivative of papyrus which was made of 

 stalks of the papyrus plant placed together to form two 

 thin layers, the fibers of one crossing those of the other, 

 and the whole made into a thin, firm sheet with the aid 



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