Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1924-09-10


the debtors household for hostage
and hold him until a satisfactory set
tlement was made. Interest rates
were rather discouraging also, "the
usual rate" referred to on clay tablets
being 20 per cent. Instead of a pen
atty OF 10 per cent as provided in
modern notes if legal steps must be
taken to collect, Babylonian notes
provided for the doubling of the debt.
The discovery Of the bone stylus at
Kish not only helps to an under
standing of an ancient civilization; it
discloses class OF implements that
has been more important to the
development of all civilization than
perhaps any other group of tools.
Man is even more truly dis
tinguished as writing animal"
than as speaking animal" for it Is
the growing fund of knowledge set
down on various surfaces by various
implements, and so passed on to gen.
Grafton after generation that has
made possible development in the
arts, sciences and industries. Back of
the Kish stylus are more primitive
members Of the pen family; chisels to
cut into stone and wooden tablets,
thorns to scratch on hides, flint
splinterS with which to furrow cave
walls, bones and sticks with which to
make probably the first rude marks
of all in sand or dirt. In a parallel
line, stretch back the fewer ancestors
of the pencil; bits Of lead, Jumps of
chalk and soft earths, and the ends
of charred sticks.
After the Scratching Tools.
The descendants of the Babylonian
stylus and the scratching tools that
preceded it present a startling array
of implements and mechanisms. In
China and Egypt paper and papyrus
were invented to supersede the cruder
and heavier writing surfaces and the
great forward step. was made Of APP
plying third substance, ink, by
means of a brush or pen. The
Egyptian reed pen made of a hollow
tubular stem may be looked upon as
the direct ancestor Of the modern pen.
1t had practically the form of its
present-day descendant, being pointed
and slit to make it pliable.
The early Greeks and Romans,
however, did not use any material
comparable to paper. The first
scribbled with chalk on broken bits
of pottery, or scratched with pointed
metal rods on wooden blocks. Their
next step was to cover the blocks
with wax and scratch their messages
in that material. Their styli had
knobs on one end used to smooth out
erroneous marks. New wax could be
applied and the tablets used over and
over. The metal styli were truly as
mighty as swords, serving as dag
gers when desired.
When papyrus reached Greece and
Italy the reed pen and the use Of
ink went with it. This combination
was also used In writing on sheep
skin parchment and vellum, and in
the hands of slave, and later monkish
copyists, went into the making of the
worlds most highly priced illumi-
mated manuscripts and hand-wrought
books.
Quilts, chiefly from goose feathers,
furnished the next source for i'm
proved pens. Not until the Nineteenth
century did detachable metal pen
points come into general use and
shoulder quilts out. Now something
like three million gross of them are
made yearly in the United States
alone.
The steel and gold pens and eTen
the latest models of fountain pens do
not complete the pen genealogy. The
far-off bit of bone or flint used by
the less dumb savage who recorded
an unimportant event many thousand
years ago was truly the original an
cestor to our typewriters, our etching
needles, ethe light rays, and acids we
have harnessed to make our half
tones, and the gigantic, thunderous
printing presses that grind out their
millions of newspapers, magazines
and books.