82 The Papyrus. — Fountain of Cyana. 



ing firmer as we ascend. From iluspith the enclosed specimen hag 

 been formed. The only book within my reach, that treats on this 

 subject, states, on the authority of Pliny, that the ancients, in making 

 paper, used the coats or pellicles which form the covering for the 

 pith. If this authority were not of so high a character, I should have 

 said that it is impossible to make paper, or any thing of that nature, 

 from any part of the bark or rind. The stalk appears to consist only 

 of two substances, the pith noticed above and a covering, very much 

 resembling that of a stalk of Indian corn. I attempted several times 

 to divide this coat into parts, and to flatten and make something like 

 paper from it, but never could succeed. It would split up immedi- 

 ately into narrow shreds, and, from the want of cohesion in the parts, 

 I was forced to relinquish the attempt. Seignor Vincenzo Politi, a 

 Syracusan gentleman of considerable antiquarian research, manufac- 

 tures and sells, to the curious, paper from the plant, but it is always 

 made from the pith. The inclosed is some of his making, and, from 

 a close examination which I have subsequently made of a vast num- 

 ber of specimens of ancient papyrus, in the museums from Naples to 

 London, I have no hesitation in saying that they were formed of ex- 

 actly the same material, and in the same way. 



Mr. Politi, in cutting the plant, rejects the upper part as too nar- 

 row, and the lower as too spongy ; he divides the remainder into 

 pieces of from eight to twelve inches in length, and stripping off the 

 bark, slices the pulp longitudinally, by means of a sharp knife, into 

 slices about a sixteenth of an inch in thickness. These are placed 

 under a roller, and, when they are pressed very thin, a sheet is form- 

 ed by joining the strips, making the sides of the adjoining pieces over- 

 lap a little. If he wishes to make the paper strong, one sheet is laid 

 crosswise over another and cemented with the same paste employed 

 in uniting the strips. If you will try, on the piece inclosed,* you will 

 find that you can write on it with a blunt pen without difficulty j and 

 even in our day, it would form no despicable paper. 



5. Fountain of Cyana. 



In bur excursion, after giving the first clump of papyrus an atten- 

 tive examination, we continued up the stream, passing other clumps, 



* The small sheet of prepared papyrus transmitted to us, bears, on one side, color- 

 ed figures of the plant, and on the other, neat well defined writing. — Ed. 



