ble-books of ivory are still used for memoranda, written
with black-lead pencils. The Romans used ivory to write the edicts of
the senate on, with a black colour; and the expression of _libri
elephantini_, which some authors imagine alludes to books that for their
_size_ were called _elephantine_, were most probably composed of ivory,
the tusk of the elephant: among the Romans they were undoubtedly scarce.

The _pumice stone_ was a writing-material of the ancients; they used it
to smoothe the roughness of the parchment, or to sharpen their reeds.

In the progress of time the art of writing consisted in _painting_ with
different kinds of _ink_. This novel mode of writing occasioned them to
invent other materials proper to receive their writing; the thin bark of
certain _trees_ and _plants_, or _linen_; and at length, when this was
found apt to become mouldy, they prepared the _skins of animals_; on the
dried skins of serpents were once written the Iliad and Odyssey. The
first place where they began to dress these skins was _Pergamus_, in
Asia; whence the Latin name is derived of _Pergamenoe_ or _parchment_.
These skins are, however, better known amongst the authors of the purest
Latin under the name of _membrana_; so called from the membranes of
various animals of which they were composed. The ancients had
_parchments_ of three different colours, white, yellow, and purple. At
Rome white parchment was disliked, because it was more subject to be
soiled than the others, and dazzled the eye. They generally wrote in
letters of gold and silver on purple or violet parchment. This custom
continued in the early ages of the church; and copies of the evangelists
of this kind are preserved in the British Museum.

When the Egyptians employed for writing the _bark_ of a _plant_ or
_reed_, called _papyrus_, or paper-rush, it superseded all former modes,
for its convenience. Formerly it grew in great quantities on the sides
of the Nile. This plant has given its name to our _paper_, although the
latter is now composed of linen and rags, and formerly had been of
cotton-wool, which was but brittle and yellow; and improved by using
cotton rags, which they glazed. After the eighth century the papyrus was
superseded by parchment. The _Chinese_ make their _paper_ with _silk_.
The use of _paper_ is of great antiquity. It is what the ancient
Latinists call _charta_ or _chartae_. Before the use of _parchment_ and
_paper_ passed to the Romans, th