第106章

ARTIFICIAL INK AND PAPER OWE THEIR INVENTION TOTHE WASP--PHoeNICIA, "LAND OF THE PURPLE-DYE"--LINES, ADDRESSED TO THE PHoeNICIAN--OLDEST EXISTING PIECE OF LITERARY COMPOSITION--WHEREPAPYRUS STILL GROWS--DU CANGE'S LINES ON THE STYLUS--MATERIALS USED TO PROMULGATE ANCIENT LAWS OF GREECE--ANCIENT METHOD OF WRITING WILLS--MATERIALS EMPLOYED IN ANCIENT HEBREW ROLLS--ANTIQUITY OF EXISTING HEBREW WRITING --OLDEST SPECIMEN OF GREEK WAX WRITING-WOODEN TALLIES AS EMPLOYED IN ENGLAND--WHEN WRITING IN GOLD CEASED--DATE OF THE FIRST DISCOVERYOF GREEK PAPYRUS IN EGYPT--PERIODS TO WHICH BELONG VARIOUS STYLES OF WRITING--ANECDOTEAND POEM ABOUT THE FIRST GOLD PEN--INTERESTINGNOTES ABOUT PENS AND INK-HORNS--EMPLOYMENT OF THE PEN AS A BADGE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY--SOME LINES BY COCKER--THE OLDEST EXISTING WRITTEN DOCUMENTS OF RUSSIA--WHEN SEALING WAX WAS FIRST EMPLOYED--PLINY'S DESCRIPTION OF THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF PAPYRUSPAPER--MODE OF PRESERVING THE ANCIENT PAPYRUSROLLS--SUGGESTIONS RESPECTING USES OF INK-COMPARATIVE TABLE ABOUT COAL TAR AND ITS BYPRODUCTS--COMPOSITIONS OF SECRET INKS AND HOWTO RENDER THEM VISIBLE--CHARACTER OF INK EMPLOYEDFOR MANY YEARS BY THE WASHINGTON PATENT OFFICE--FACTS ELICITED BY HERAPATH IN THE UNROLLMENTOF A MUMMY--LINES FROM SHAKESPEARE AND PERSEUS--SEVENTEENTH CENTURY OBSERVATIONSABOUT SECRET INKS--CAUSE OF THE DESTRUCTION OF MANY ANCIENT MSS.--METHODS TO BE EMPLOYED IN THE RESTORATION OF SOME OLD INKS-VARIATIONS IN THE MEANING OF WORDS--THE POUNCEBOX PRECEDED BLOTTING PAPER--SOME OBSERVATIONSABOUT BLOTTING PAPER--ANECDOTE RELATING TO DR. GALE--WHEN WAFERS WERE INTRODUCED-PERSIAN ANECDOTE ABOUT THE DIVES--EPISODES RESPECTING THE STYLUS--DESCRIPTION BY BELOE OF ANCIENT PERSIC AND ARABIC MSS.--CITATION FROMOLD BOSTON NEWSPAPER AND POEM--METHOD OF COLLECTING RAGS IN 1807 AND SOME LINES ADDRESSEDTO THE LADIES--METHOD TO PHOTOGRAPH COLORED INKS--POEM BY ISABELLE HOWE FISKE.

IN considering the important and kindred subjects of "gall" ink and "pulp" paper, we are not to forget the LITTLE things connected with their development and which, indeed, made their invention possible.

The gall-nut contains gallic and gallo-tannic acid, and which acids, in conjunction with an iron salt, forms the sole base of the best ink. This nut is produced by the punctures made on the young buds of branches of certain species of oak trees by the female wasp. This same busy little insect was also the first professional paper maker. She it was who taught us not only the way to change dry wood into a suitable pulp, the kind of size to be used, how to waterproof and give the paper strength, but many more marvelous details appertaining to the manufacture of paper which in their ramifications have proved of inestimable benefit and service to the human race.

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The Greek word "Phoenicia" means literally "the land of the purple dye," and to the Phoenicians is attributed the invention of the art of writing.

TO THE PHOENICIAN.

"Creator of celestial arts, Thy painted word speaks to the eye;To simple lines thy skill imparts The glowing spirit's ecstasy."The oldest piece of literary composition known in the oldest book (roll) in existence is to be found in the celebrated papyrus Prisse, now in the Louvre at Paris. It consists of eighteen pieces in Egyptian hieratic writing, ascribed to about the year B. C. 2500.

While the papyrus plant has almost vanished from Egypt, it still grows in Nubia and Abyssinia. It is related by the Arab traveler, Ibn-Haukal, that in the tenth century, in the neighborhood of Palermo in Sicily, the papyrus plant grew with luxuriance in the Papirito, a stream to which it gave its name.

Du Cange, 1376, cites the following lines from a French metrical romance, written about that time, to show that waxen tablets continued to be occasionally used till a late period:

"Some with antiquated style In waxen tablets promptly write;Others with finer pen, the while Form letters lovelier to the sight."The laws of Greece were promulgated by means of MSS. on linen, as they were also in Rome, and in addition to linen; cloth and silk were occasionally used.

Skins of various kinds of fish, and even the "intestines of serpents" were employed as writing materials.

Zonaras states that the fire which took place at Constantinople in the reign of Emperor Basiliscus consumed, among other valuable remains of antiquity, a copy of the Iliad and Odyssey, and some other ancient poems, written in letters of gold upon material formed of the intestines of a serpent. We are also informed by Purcelli that monuments of much more modern dates, the charter of Hugo and Lothaire, A. D. 933(kings of Italy), preserved in the archives of Milan, are written upon fish skins.

Constantine authorized his soldiers dying on the field of battle to write their last will and testament with the point of their sword on its sheath or on a shield.

B. C. 270. The Jewish elders, by order of the high priest, carried a copy of the law to Ptolemy Philadelphus, written in letters of gold upon skins, the pieces of which were so artfully put together that the joinings did not appear.

No monuments of Hebrew writing exist which are not posterior even to the Christian era, with the exception of those on the coins of the Maccabees, which are in the ancient or what is termed the Samaritan forms of the Hebrew letters. This coinage took place about B. C. 144.

The most ancient specimen of Hebrew ink writing extant is alleged to have been written A. D. 489.