Section III. Manuscripts. 
9 
1901.] ........ 
showing that the sheets of this paper were made in “ moulds ” or frames 
with an open bottom; while others do not show any waterlines, and 
evidently were made in moulds with a comparatively solid bottom. In the 
latter, the bottom would seem to have been made with a piece of coarse 
cloth stretched across the frame. In the former, parallel lines of string, or 
wire, or bamboo fibre must have been stretched across the bottom of the 
frame, &s shown by the waterlines in the paper. The strings were fixed 
very close to one another; for in the paper there are about 14 waterlines 
to an inch. To judge from the absence of any corresponding waterlines, 
the moulds do not seem to have been provided with any transverse 
supporting strings or wires. Pothis Nos. 1 and 2 of Set I, and No. 1 
of Set II, are written on paper without waterlines, while the paper of 
all the others shows them. It is possible that on further enquiry, 
the two points of difference here noted may yield a test of age. 
For the present, the information on both points is insufficient for 
the purpose. As Professors Wiesner and Karabacek have shown 
(Mittheilungen aus der Sammlung Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer , 1887), the 
Arabs, who learned the art of paper-making from the Chinese in Samar¬ 
kand in 751 A.D., knew, in the 9th century, the practice both of loading 
the pulp with starch and making paper in open-bottomed moulds. They 
used moulds with and without transverse supporting strings or wires; 
and the paper, made in their moulds, shows 15 waterlines to an inch (or 
6 to a centimetre). There is no reason, so far as I know, to believe that 
they were the inventors of either of those two practices. The presump¬ 
tion is rather the other way; for the British Collection possesses two 
Chinese documents, dated 768 and 786 A.D. (see below, p. 22), both 
of which are written on sheets of paper showing waterlines as well as 
the presence of starch. So far, all the Pothis may be anterior to the 
8th century A.D.; some of them, as will be shown presently, are certainly 
several centuries older. In any case, the method of making paper in 
solid-bottomed moulds is cruder and more primitive than that of making 
it in open-bottomed ones. Accordingly Pothis written on paper without 
waterlines, i.e., made by the former method, are pro tanto likely to be 
older than those written on paper with waterlines. To the former class 
belong three Pothis, Nos. 1 and 2 of Set I, and No. I of Set II, which 
are said to have been dug out from the Kuchar stupa; to the latter 
belong all the others. Judging by this test, the Pothis of the Kuchar 
stupa are older than the rest. A further peculiarity of the Pothis 
of the Kuchar stupa is that their leaves are 
Coating. covered with a more or less thick smooth 
coating (of chalk ?) on which the letters are traced. It is of a white 
colour and particularly noticeable in the case of No. 2 of Set I. In 
J. i. 2 
