The Challis messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1912-current, 1924-09-10

the debtors household for a hostage
and hold him until a satisfactory set
| Element was made. Interest rates
were rather discouraging, also, 1.-THE
usual rate" referred to on clay tablets
being 20 per cent. Instead Of q 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; 1t
discloses a 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 1t 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 parallel
line, stretch back the fewer ancestors
of <bo ~ Inn Af
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 1t 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 ap-
plying 4 third substance, ink, by
means of brush or pen. The
Egyptian reed pen made Of hollow
tubular stem may be looked upon As
the direct ancestor of the modern pen.
1t had practically the form of its
descendant, being pointed
and slit to make it pliable.
The early Greeks and Romans,
however, did not use any material
to paper. The first
scribbIed 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
n that material. Their styli had
knobs on one end used to smooth out I
erroneous marks. New wax could be |
applied and the tablets used over and
over The metal styli were truly az T
mighty as swords, serving as dag
yers when desired.
When papyrus reached Greece and
italy the reed pen and the use of A
nix went with 1t. This combination r
vas also used in writing on sheep q
kin parchment and vellum, and In n
he hands Of slave, and later monkish
.opyists, went into the making of the =
worlds most highly priced illumi- .
ated manuscripts and hand-wrought
looks.
Quilts, chiefly from goose feathers,
furnished the next source for I'm 5
roved pens. Not until the Nineteenth 81
entury did detachable metal pen il
oints come into general use and W
boulder quilts out. Now something Of
Ike three million gross of them are
made yearly in the United States
lone.
The steel and gold pens and even
he latest models Of fountain pens do III
OF complete the pen genealogy. The &c
ar-off bit of bone or flint used by In
he less dumb savage who recorded &C
n unimportant event many thousand r.
ears ago was truly the original an a.
estor to our typewriters our etching ~
eedles, the light rays and acids We Ut
ave harnessed to make our half. lie
ones, and the gigantic, thunderou. til
rinting presses that grind out theh pc
,illions Of newspapers, magazines ";
nd bookA