♦Parchment a substitute for papyrus♦
Following the making of papyrus came the manufacture of parchment, the use of which in diplomas and certain public documents continues to the present time. As the story runs, the invention of the new writing material was due to the spirit of rivalry between two cities of the ancient world. Attalus, king of Pergamus, was anxious to establish in his capital a library that would excel the splendid collection at Alexandria, but Egypt, having a monopoly of papyrus, refused to sell to him. But no monopoly of that day or this could ever control all the means of supplying man’s needs. Nature is resourceful, and man, when driven by necessity, soon learns that her treasures are practically limitless. When the supply of one article is for any reason curtailed, she furnishes something as good or better to take its place. If all the paper in the world to-day were owned by a monopoly that refused to sell, something would speedily be found to take its place. So the inhabitants of Pergamus, being refused papyrus, set about manufacturing a substitute, which came to be known among the Romans as “pergamena,” from which comes our word parchment.
♦Manufacture of parchment♦
The skins of sheep and goats were employed in the making of parchment. These were steeped in pits impregnated with lime, and afterward stretched upon frames, where their thickness was reduced by paring and scraping them with sharp instruments. To obtain the fine, uniform, velvety surface characteristic of the best parchment, it was necessary to sprinkle the skin with chalk, and rub and polish it with fine pumice-stones, which not only smoothed and softened the leather, but also improved its color. When it had been reduced to about half its original thickness, it was dried for use. Vellum, which still represents the acme of luxury in bookbinding, was made in a similar manner, from the skins of young calves. As early as 1085 B. C., the Hebrews wrote on the skins of animals, and it is believed that the Medes, at about the same period, used a substance resembling parchment, and prepared in a similar manner, the cost of land carriage being too great to admit of any extensive introduction of papyrus into western Asia. “For public documents, the rock, and for private, the pen and the prepared skin, seem to have been preferred by them, and in the earlier times, at any rate, they employed no other materials.”
♦The advent of paper♦
For many years parchment was used in England for all deeds of real estate, and so lengthy were these documents that it was said it took a flock of sheep to convey an acre of land or make a marriage settlement. As the age of stone, the carved obelisk, the clay tablet, and other crude materials was outgrown, so was that of papyrus and parchment. With the next step forward came paper, and the improvements in its manufacture with regard to quality, variety, and increase of production, have kept pace with the varying and growing demands. It is not given us to know what the future may bring forth, but paper seems likely to hold sway until the end of time.
CHAPTER III
THE ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF PAPER
♦Paper from mulberry bark♦
To the Chinese is now generally conceded the discovery of the art of making paper, of the sort familiar to us, from fibrous matter reduced to a pulp. According to the old saying, “Time and patience will change the mulberry leaf into satin.” The ingenious, painstaking sons of the Flowery Kingdom had been demonstrating its truth through some centuries, when, about 150 A. D., they discovered that the mulberry might be put to still another use. The tree that they chose for their new manufacture was not identical with the one upon which they fed their silkworms, and to which they were indirectly indebted for their softly shimmering silks, but it belonged to the same family. From its bark they made, by a process that must have seemed to them something akin to magic, a material which, in its developed and improved form, has been of priceless value to the world, far exceeding that of the rich and costly stuffs woven from the cocoons of the silkworm.