SCIENCE IN THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD 



was said to have been invented at Pergamus, but which 

 was probably only perfected there, since a statement of 

 Herodotus makes it clear that the use of skins in writing 

 had been practised long before. In any event, parch- 

 ment eventually superseded papyrus as a book material 

 everywhere in the Western world, outside of Egypt. It 

 continued to be almost the exclusive book material every- 

 where in Europe until paper was invented, late in the 

 Middle Ages. 



It must be obvious that parchment, being made of spe- 

 cially prepared skins of animals, is a much more costly 

 material than papyrus. In point of fact, it became very 

 costly indeed in the Middle Ages, and, in securing it, 

 the scribes of the time were often put to their wits' end. 

 Here, then, was the traditional stimulus to invention- 

 necessity. The unmarked outer surface of this parch- 

 ment roll must have persistently appealed to the eye 

 of even the least inventive scribe, and we can little doubt 

 that many a writer was led to utilize this surface, even 

 while the form of the book still remained a roll. It must 

 be added, however, that this is an inference only, for 

 no rolls written on both sides have been preserved to 

 us: a fact sufficiently explained by the almost total 

 loss of the earliest examples of European book-making. 

 The oldest parchment books that are preserved date 

 only from the third or fourth century, A. D., at which 

 time the folded book, with writing on both sides of the 

 leaf precisely as in the modern printed book, had made 

 its appearance. 



By what steps had this transition from the roll to the 

 folded book been accomplished ? We can only guess. 



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