Daily American telegraph., 1851-12-22

tors, wounded his first assassin with style
and 1T was with their styles that the followers
OF Caius Gracious killed, in tumult the lie
tor of Opimus. The welLknown modern Ital-
ian stiletto may derive its name from such an
origin.
/ The Egyptians arrived soon ut the art Of
making linen and that done white linen
would soon suggest itself as convenient ma
terial on which to make portable inscription.
Linen was therefore used; but soon the princi-
pal idea OF that age, the notion from which we
derive our common name for the material on
which we write was carried out in Egypt 1t
was very simple thing, an improvement on
the use OF tree-bark, caused by the use of
peellngs from reed called byblos, or papyrus,
then very common, and now very rare in Low
or Egypt. From its name, byblos, comes the
Greek word sgnifying book, and through that
channel our word for the Sacred Volume. The
papyrus grew abunaantly in lakes and marsh
es to height Of about ten feet The dame
ter OF its stem is two or three inches, and from
ITS surface peel can be taken off, layer after
layer, to the number of about twenty coatings
| The use of this peel soon occurred to the Egyp-
tians as an improvement upon ordinary bark.
/ To prepare papyrus for use, having cut off
the brush from above and the root from be-
low, the Egyptians cut each stem into two
peices of equal lengths, and then proceeded TO
the peeling. The layers became smaller of
course, but also whittier, rs the peelers gradu-
ally approached the centre of the stem. Each
strip was then extended fiat and suffered a
few slight acts Of preparation before another
strip was placed over it. in such a manner that
the fbres of the two strips crossed each others
they were joined together they were joined,
perhaps by their own saccharine matter, or
by simple vegetable gluten beaten together,
pressed, and polished A number Of these
prepared and strengthened slips, having been
gummed and beaten together at the edges,
would form papyrus sheet of any size; and
the whole, having been thus prepared was
imprcgnated with oil Of cedar to preserve it
from corruption. Of the papyrus manufac-
tured, there soon came to be several qualities.
That made from the fine white strips in the
middle was imperial, and called :: August"
The middle quality, used by the priests, was
called " "hieratic until fattery named it. after
the wife of Augustus, Liyia." The finest
sort, however, being torn too easily by the
hand, pointed reeds were improved in the reign
of Claudius, by crossing with o more plebeian
strip
Papyrus could be written upon one side only
The introduction of this material by the Egyp-
to literature generally. 1t lis, as Germans would
say, the name father" to paper, and q very
respectable and worthy elder Books were
copied into long rolls of sheet glued under sheet;
the sheet which felt the first glue was called
on that account the protocol and our diploma
| fists preserve the term in their transactions.
The run upon papyrus being very great,
that plant began to show some signs of search
| ty in Egypt, and for that reason, among 9th
ers, its expectation was at one period forbid
den. At the same time the Kings of Perga-
mus began to be literary sect, and wanted
something whereupon their scribes might copy
books The skins of beasts, which, in a rough
state, had before, in various places, been oc.
casionally used, attracted now increased at
tention. They were smoothed and prepared
into dry substances called, after Pergamus,
Pergament or Parchment, and vellum, which
is but another way of saying skin. Here was
another capital, durable thing, which found
| its way into the world about two or three hun
dred years before Christ 1t was dear, how
ever, and for common purposes papyrus was so
much more convenient that the Egyptian pa
per never was supplanted, until the birth Of a
system which got paper out Of cotton, certain
| ly not earlier than seven or eight hundred
4 years after the first discovery of parchment
The world then worked on for something like
a thousand years before we hit upon the plan
of making paper out of linen rags very lucky
thing, for up to that time the monks who
could not go to the expense Of much new
parchment, had been industriously scraping
out the copied records of antiquity, and works
of its great masters, to make room for their
own opinions on things in general, and saints
and miracles particularly The gradual pro-
gress of the art of paper-making to the pres
ent day it is not now necessary to Illustrate
but we may refer, in connection with this sub
ject, to the description of paper-mlI, con-
tanned in No. % of this Journal.
Probably the first pen was u piece Of flint,
or any barbarous chsel which would be sup
planted by some kind of iron style so soon as
civilization had advanced sufficiently for the
attainment Of an instrument in iron These
metal pens were generally found less suitable
than reeds, when men had come to possess the
power of writing with u colored fluid upon
parchment or papyrus The first ink proba-
| bly, was the dark matter from the k-bag"
Of the different species of cuttle-fsh /; that is
what the "Indian ink made and employed
4 in China, ought to bc, though the Chinese
horrible cheats) initiate it frequently with
lampblack. Our color called sepia is the same
thing, differing i'll character as coming from
molusc of another species. To people with
weak eyes the Romans sometimes wrote with
an exceedingly black ink on ivory. But even
where letter would be written on papyrus
with ink and reed, it was first put together
on wax, in most cases with an iron style for
the Romans were more clever at the sword
than Mt the pen, and it bothered the brains of
an average Roman very much to write de-
cent letter. 1t was requisite to make 2 rough
draft in the first instance, and he did this with
a style on wax, where he could erase, intcrpo-
late, and botch, with comfort till he had struck
out composition to his liking Thatiron age