The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-11-08
STRANGEST BOOKS
PREPARED WITHOUT INK, PEN,
TYPE on PAPER.
One . Prayer Book Made by Weaver
In France--AnOfher Of veIlum
with the Letters
Cut In.

One q Prayer Book Made by Weavers
In France--AnOther OF vellum
with the Letters
Cut In.
The strangest books In the world were
prepared without pen, without ink.
without type and without paper. says
The St. Louis Globe Democrat. One il
a prayer book manufactured by Arm
of weavers at Lyons. in France. 1t IL
woven of the purest silk, the letters APP
pearing in black on white back
ground, black border surrounding the
page; and with such nicely IL the work
done that, in spite of the difficulty of
weaving such pattern, the letters are
perfectly regular in shape and clear to
the eye. The book Is now said to be In
the Government library at Paris. An
other very remarkable book. also said
to be In Paris, Is a homily by some
medieval monk, whose name does not
appear on its title. Its pages are OF
.vellum and the letters composing the
words are cut In the material, the work
having been done either with very
small sharp knife or pair Of exceedingly
delicate scissors. The ve.ium pages are
interviewed with very thick blue pa
per. SO that the letters appear blue.
Who did II or when, there Is no record
to show, but the work was well known
In 1910, for at that date German mo-
bleman offered for 1t a sum equivalent
In our money to over $4,000. 1t is said
now to be the property of the descend
ants of Prince de Lfgne. The third
book which came not from the PRINT
er's hands is q swedish translation of
the Four Gospels. The pages are
parchment: the letters are cut from
very thick silver leaf and fastened to
cessfully withstood the test of time. The
initial letters are OF gold leaf, very
thick, and fastened to the page in the
manner mentioned. The age of the
work is unknown, neither does 1t bear
the name of the 1aborious toiler who
probably during years of time patiently
cut letter after letter and fastened them
| In order on his pages. 1t Is now in
| the university library at Upsala.
The most extensive work on single
subject is the "Acta Sanctorum, pop
u1a.ly known as The Lives OF the
| Saints 1t was begun by Johann Boil
| land, a celebrated Jesuit, who died in
| 1865. He conceived the idea Of record
| ing ell the miracles, wonderful acts and
| doings of all the saints In the calendar,
| and prepared several volumes, which
| were published during his lifetime. AZ
| ter his death the work was continued
by many learned Jesuits, who were
| called Bollandists, and from the first
| quarter OF the seventeenth centuru to
| the present day. the collection OF mate
/ rial and Its preparation for the press
| have gone steadily on. Sixty-one VOL
umes folio, each page nearly the Size of
this paper hare already been issued;
leothexs are NOW In preparation, and 1t Is
said will shortly appear.
| The oldest existing book in the world
Is a papyrus containing a collection Of
proverbs, compiled by an Egyptian
king called Ptah-hotep. whether this
name Yeas that of an individual or of
a dynasty is uncertain. The papyrus
dates from period about 5000 years
| before Christ, or about a thousand years
before the time of Abraham. The book
was discovered in one of the royal
| tombs near Thebes, and is now in the
| British museum. The smallest book
ever printed is said to be a Bible, whose
| type were specially cast of a size small
err than brilliant The book is by Ia
| inches. the paper was specially made,
| and the printing was done on an old
| fashioned hand machine. After all the
| trouble OF composition and printing,
only four or FIVE copies could be pre-
| pared, on account of the delicacy OF the
| type. and one of these Is now in the
| British Museum.
| The first book published in North
America was John Eliots translation
of the Bible into one of the Indian
dialects of New England, the New
Testament being published in 1861,
1
Copies of this Bible are now extreme
ly rare, bringing from $1,000 to $4,000
| each. The language in which it was
printed has become extinct like the
people for whom II was translated and
it is said that there is no one who can
now read and understand it.
| The strangest collection of books
in the world is preserved in the cas-
tie library at Wartenstein. The work
| Is in many volumes, each being de-
\ voted to a description of a particu-
| lar kind OF tree growing in Hesse-
Nassau or the surrounding country
and giving an especial account of its
wood, bark, foliage, flowers and fruit,
| If any, Its habitat, the uses and other
| data concerning 1t. The back of each
volume Is made of the bark of the
| tree in its natural state. though IN
some cases hardened and preserved by
being coated with an unknown COM
| position. One cover is a half inch
board of the natural wood; the other,
of smaller thickness, is carefully
smoothed and poliised to show the
| beauty of the grain.
The first dictionary compiled was
prepared by a Chinese scholar named
Paout-she, about 1,100 years before
the beginning of our era. 1t contains
about 10000 characters, and although
many Chinese cholars have since COM
piled dictionaries. the principle and
arrangement of this first volume have
been steadily kept in mind and the
last Chinese dictionary is but an am
plification of the first.
The largest geography in the world
is in the imperial library In Pelxin.
There are in China 1,473 districts In
the empire and to each was assigned
a geographer. who was required to de-
scribe everything of note in his dis
trict, to give the number of houses
and their population, the height of each
hill, the length, breadth and depth of
every stream; to state what mineral
products there were, If any, and the
number of trees of each kind, together
with their approximate sizes. The
work was began nearly 500 years ago
and is not yet finished. There are said
to be over $4,000 volumes in this mon
ster geography.