202 Sir Humphry Davy on the papyri 
once, it appeared as if they presented perfect columns of 
writing; but the fact is, the papyrus was full of holes, and 
each line was made up of letters from several different folds 
of the MS. When the process of unrolling these papyri 
was performed in the common way, the result obtained ap- 
peared, till it was examined minutely, a perfect column ; but 
was in fact made up of the letters of different words. I en- 
deavoured to obtain the fragments of a single leaf attached 
to a layer of membrane by applying a solution of caoutchouc 
in ether to the surface of a MS., so as to supply the parts of 
the leaf destroyed ; but operating in this way, I obtained 
only a few characters, and never an entire word; so that 
after various unsuccessful trials, I was obliged to give up 
the MSS. of this description as hopeless ; more than £ of 
their contents probably being always destroyed, and that in 
so irregular a way as to leave no entire sentences, or even 
words. 
On two brown MSS., which were firm in their texture, 
and had the appearance of peat, and the leaves of which 
would not separate by common means, I tried the experiment 
of heating, after they had absorbed a small quantity of chlo- 
rine ; and I found that in both cases the leaves detached 
themselves from each other, and were easily unrolled ; but 
these MSS. had been so penetrated by water, that there were 
only a few folds which contained words, and the letters 
were generally erased, and the charcoal which had composed 
them was deposited on the folds of the MSS. 
Of the black MSS., of which the layers were perfect and 
easily separated, all the best specimens had been unrolled or 
operated upon, so that fragments only of this description 
