venth century
its use was gradually superseded by the introduction of parchment; and
before the end of the twelfth century it had gone generally out of use.
From "papyrus" the name of "paper," which, with slight variations, is
common to many languages, is no doubt derived.

Parchment and vellum--which are made from the skin of animals, the former
from sheep or goat, the latter from calf, both prepared with lime--were
in use at a very early period, long before their accredited introduction.
It has been by some supposed that Eumenes, King of Pergamus, who lived
about B.C. 190, was the inventor of parchment; but it was known much
earlier, as may be seen by several references to it in the Bible (Isaiah,
viii. i; Jeremiah, xxxvi. 2; Ezekiel, xi. 9). It is, however, very
probable that it may have been brought to perfection at Pergamus, as it
was one of the principal articles of commerce of that kingdom.

Parchment, in early times, was not only expensive, but often very
difficult to procure; whence arose the practice of erasing old writing
from it, and engrossing it a second time. Such manuscripts are called
"palimpsests." Modern art has found the means of discharging the more
recent ink, and thus restoring the original writing, by which means we
have recovered many valuable pieces, particularly Cicero's lost book, _de
Republica_ and some fragments of his _Orations_.

The most ancient manuscripts, both on papyrus and parchment, were kept
in rolls, called in Latin _volumina_, whence our English word "volume."
Chinese paper, made from the bark of the bamboo, the mulberry, or the
khu-ku tree, and so extremely thin that it can only be used on one side,
is supposed to have been invented fifty years before the Christian era
or earlier. Chinese rice-paper is made from the stems of the bread-fruit
tree, cut into slices and pressed. The skins of all kinds of animals
are used--among them the African skin, of a brown color, upon which the
Hebrew Pentateuch and service-books used in the Jewish synagogues were
formerly written. Silk-paper was prepared for the most part in Spain
and its colonies, but was never brought to much perfection. Asbestos, a
fibrous mineral, was made into paper, tolerably light and pliant, which,
being incombustible, was denominated "eternal paper." Herodotus tells
us that cloth was made of asbestos by the Egyptians; and Pliny mentions
napkins made of it in A.D. 74. We know by tradition that the intestines
of a se