|$ APPENDIX. 



the moft natural, the fkins of beads. However this Be^ 

 it is certain under the Egyptians, naturally averfe to novelty 

 and improvement, paper arrived to no great perfection till 

 taken in hands by the Romans. The Charta Claudia was- 

 thirteen inches wide, the Hieratica, or Saitica, .eleven, and 

 fuch is the length of the leaf of my book in the Saitic dialect^ 

 that is, the old Coptic, or Egyptian of Upper Egypt. I have 

 no idea what the Emporetic paper was, which obtained that 

 degree of coarfenefs and toughnefs^as to ferve for fliopkeep* 

 ers ufes to tie up goods, unlefs it was like our brown papers 

 employed to the fame purpofes* 



If ; the date of the invention of this ufeful art- of making 

 paper is doubtful, the time when it was loft r or fuperfeded 

 by one more convenient, is as uncertain. Euftathius fays 

 it was difufed in his time in the 1170. Mabillon endeavours 

 to prove it exifted in the 9th, and- even that there exifted 

 fome Popiili bulls wrote upon it as late as the nth century.. 

 He gives, as inftances, a part of St Mark's Gofpel preferved 

 at Venice as being upon papyrus, and the fragment of Jo- 

 fephus at Milan to be cotton paper, while Maifei proves this 

 to be jufl the reverfe, that of St Mark being cotton, and the 

 other indifputably he thinks to be Egyptian papyrus, fo that 

 Mabillon's authority as to the bulls of the pope may be fair- 

 ly queftioned. 



The feveral times I have been at thefe places mentioned,. 

 I have never fucceeded in feeing any of thefe pieces; that of 

 St Mark at Venice I was allured had been recognized to be 

 sotton paper ; it was rendered not legible by the warm fali- 

 ra of zealots killing it from devotion, which I can eafily 

 tomDrehend mufl contain a. very corrofive quality, and the 



Venetians 



