第90章

FROM WHENCE COMES THE NAME PAPER--FIRST CENTURYCOMMENT ABOUT IT--KNIGHT'S COMMENTS MORE THAN1,800 YEARS LATER--PAPYRUS AN EGYPTIAN REED--NAMES BESTOWED BY ANCIENT WRITERS--THE SAME NAMES AS EMPLOYED IN MODERN TIMES--LEAVESOF PLANTS PRECEDED THE INVENTION OF PAPYRUS--WHEN IT WAS THAT ROLLED RECORDS CAME INTO VOGUE--VARRO'S ESTIMATION AS TO THE ORIGINAL USEOF PAPYRUS NOT CORRECT--REAL FACTS RESPECTINGTHE INTRODUCTION OF PAPYRUS BEYOND THE LIMITS OFEGYPT--CHARACTER OF MATERIALS EMPLOYED BY THEGREEKS BEFORE THAT EPOCH--EMPLOYMENT OF IT FOR LITERARY PURPOSES--ADOPTION OF PARCHMENT AND VELLUM--PAPYRUS MSS. EMPLOYED IN THE FORMOF ROLLS AND THE REASON FOR SAME--ANCIENT MANUFACTURE OF PAPYRUS IN EGYPT--SOME OF THE NAMESUSED TO DESIGNATE DIFFERENT KINDS--PLINY'S DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPYRUS AND HISMISINFORMATION ABOUT IT--WHERE IT FLOURISHED BEST--PAPYRUS AS KNOWN TO THE HEBREWS AND ITSBIBLICAL MENTION--MANUFACTURE OF PAPYRUS IN THE ANCIENT CITY OF MEMPHIS--CHARACTERISTICS OFTHE PAPER EMPLOYED BY THE MEXICANS--MR. HARRIS'SDISCOVERY OF ANCIENT FRAGMENTS OF PAPYRUS-THE STORY ABOUT IT AS TOLD BY THE LONDON ATHENaeUM--DATES OF THE OLDEST KNOWN SPECIMENSOF GREEK PAPYRI--DATE OF THE FIRST DISCOVERY OF GREEK PAPYRI--USE OF OTHER PLIABLE MATERIALSWITH PAPYRUS--HOW THEY WERE PREPARED FOR WRITING PURPOSES--DOUBTS AS TO TIME THAT ROLLED RECORDS SUPERSEDED TABLET FORMS--SUGGESTIONSBY NOEL HUMPHREYS--VIEWS ENTERTAINED BY EARLIER WRITERS.

THE name paper is derived from papyrus, a reed grown in Egypt, whose stalk furnished for so many centuries the principal material for writing upon to the people of that country and those bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. In the first century of the Christian era the younger Pliny remarks:

"All the usages of civilized life depend in a remarkable degree upon the employment of paper.

At all events, the remembrance of past events."A statement which has caused Mr. Knight to make the following comment:

"This observation, undoubtedly true 1,800 years ago, is much more remarkably so now; indeed, in considering that paper as we now understand it was entirely unknown to Europe in the time of Pliny, the expression of the great dependence upon what seems to us so fragile and inefficient a substitute for real paper appears strange."Mr. Knight also says that the Greek name papuros, mentioned by Theophrastus, a contemporary of Aristotle and Alexander, was probably the Egyptian name of the reed with a Greek termination. It was also called biblos by Homer and Herodotus, whence our term bible. The term volumen, a scroll, indicates the early form of a book of bark, papyrus, skin, or parchment, as the term liber (Latin, a book, or the inner bark of a tree) does the use of the bark itself. Hence also our terms library and librarian. "Book" is also derived from the Danish word bog, the bark of the beech.

Pliny quoting Varro, who preceded him some two centuries, asserts that before the invention of papyrus, the large leaves of certain plants were prepared so that they could be written upon. Hence originates our term "leaves" of a book which in the Latin form folium has also given us the modern term folio.

When, however, the reed pen and the pencil brush and their kindred substances denominated colored liquids or inks, came into vogue, some material on which characters could be inscribed and preserved in the shape of continuous rolls for record and other uses became necessary. The papyrus plant seems to have met every requirement. It is a noteworthy fact that all information which can be derived from any source, specifically calls attention to papyrus and sometimes the inner barks of trees as being coexistent with pen and ink.

Varro has been credited with many statements which in the light of investigation and discovery are proved to be incorrect. One of these is in effect that the use of papyrus was an incident pertaining to the expeditions of Alexander the Great. This assertion is not only contradicted by Pliny, the historian, who calls attention to "books of papyrus found in the tomb of Numa " (Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, B. C. 716-672,) but even at this late day many monuments of ancient papyri are still extant and belonging to periods more than a thousand years before Alexander's time.

The real facts in respect to this matter are, that the introduction of the use of papyrus to nations beyond the limits of Egypt was an event that did not take place until after the reign of the first Macedonian sovereign of Egypt, Ptolemy Lagus (B. C. 323) when, in return for Greek literature, Egypt gave back her papyrus. Before this epoch the Greeks had been in the habit of employing such materials as linen, wax, bark and leaves for ordinary writing purposes, while their public records were inscribed on stone, brass, lead or other metals.

Papyrus as then introduced into those western countries was the only substance for a long period employed for literary purposes.

Parchment and vellum, which were adopted there as writing materials about two centuries later, were too costly to be used so long as papyrus was within reach.

When the use of this ancient paper had become established in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, all the MSS. assumed the form of rolls, being rolled on cylinders of wood, ivory, bronze, glass and other substances. Sometimes, the ends were decorated by various ornaments. As a rule only one side of the material was written upon. This was due largely to the fact of its brittle character which would cause it to break if rolled or bent the wrong way.