Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1922-06-06
ORIGIN OF PRINTING.
Its Development Largely Due to the
Production of Cheap Paper.

Its Development Largely Due to the
Production of Cheap Paper.
This is the age of printed reading
matter.
With 24,5S9 different newspapers and
periodicals. whose annual circulation
is over fourteen billion cofies, with the
sbook publishers turning out over IT'S
million volumes each year, and with
public libraries established in approx
imately 5000 towns and cities of'the
United States, it is hard for us to real
ize that men didn't always have as
much quantity and variety of reading
matter as we rhave today.
Yet not so many centuries ago the
average person had no chance of own
ing any sort of book. Only the very
wealthy could obtain the. rolls which
were the only known means of pre-
serving literature.
If man wanted a certain book, he
had his slaves transcribe a copy of it.
This was a slow and expensive meth
cd, but it was the only way library
could be formed.
A few booksellers existed in the days
of Rome, but a man almost had to
pawn his villa to buy his wares.
That we today enjoy such an abund-
ance of cheap reading matter is large
ly duerto the development of mate
rial on which to write and print.
First Books on Wood, Bark, Stone.
The first books of prehistoric days
were crude pictures and sign-writing
upon wood, bark, stones and similar
materials.
The Babylonians and Assyrians
wrote upon clay, which they baked into
bricks.
Excavations of buried cities have
brought to light hundreds of such brick
tablets bearing inscriptions. These
specimens of ancient "brick Libraries"
are square, oblong, conical, cylindrical,
and round. In dimensions they range
from vest pocket sized brick pamph-
to regular "Kelleys" of one foot by
nine inches.
They can be seen in the British
Museum, the Louvre, and the Art
Museum OF New York City.
. Discovery of Papyrus
When some Edison of ancient
Egypt discovered that the stalks OF
papyrus plant, rolled into sheets and
dried formed a better substance 10
write on than clay bricks, it was no
longer necessary for writer TO con-
duct brick kiln, or for the society
ladies of the time to be accompanied
on their afternoon visits by OK carts
hauling tcn-pound calling cards.
Papyrus does not decay, and in the
Memphis Museum You can see a
manuscript giving an account of lcp-
rosy, 1000 years before Christ.
Still more remarkable is the ''Papy-
rus priSSe" in the Louvre at Paris.
This book is the Oldest in existence: /:
it deals with "How to Behave Wisely"
and was written about 4,3O0 years ago.
The cpics of Homer were written
on papyrus rolls.
! This writing material was used by
the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans
down to the 9Th century of our era.
Leaves of trees coated with wax to
| take impressions, were also used by
the Romans and Greeks.
Parchment, the skin Of the sheep,
was another writing material of early
| invention.
The custom of inditing legal rlocu-
mcnts of especial Importance or
parchment still exists.
Chinese First Made Paper
Paper was first made by the Chinese
| They knew the secret of it's manufac-
turc in the first century of our time
possibly earlier.
From the Chinese the Hindus, Per
slams and Arabs found out about
paper, and these In turn passed on tho
knowledge to the Greeks, from which
the other European nations learned Oi
it.
The first paper mills were set III
in Spain by the Moore in 1854, in
which year factories were established
at Valencia and Toledo.
Their materials were rags. grass
iute and bark. Wood pulp as, IN in
gredient is a~modern discovery.