oks, it is really
the product of a different line of evolution. When we examine it
closely, we find that in many respects it is the exact reverse of our
practice. It is printed on only one side of the paper; it is trimmed at
the back and folded on the fore edge; its wide margin is at the top; its
running headline is on the folded fore edge; its sewing is on the
outside; its binding is limp; its lines run up and down the page; and
its pages, according to Western ideas, open from the back towards the
front. Yet it is a thing of beauty, and let us hope that nothing in the
modern reorganization of China will change its character to prevent it
from remaining a joy forever.

Just as Chinese paper is made from bamboo, which plays an even greater
part in China than papyrus did in Egypt, so the book of India utilizes
the leaves of that important tropical tree, the palm. The sheets of the
book before me are strips of palm-leaf two inches wide and two feet
long. They are written on both sides and, following the run of the
grain, lengthwise. This makes an inordinate length of line, but, owing
to the small number of lines on the page, the confusion of the eye is
less than might be expected. The leaves composing the book are clamped
between two boards of their own size, the block thus formed is pierced
with two holes, through which pins are thrust, and the whole is wound
with a cord. The dimensions vary, some books being larger and some much
smaller. I have also before me a Burmese booklet in which the leaves are
one inch wide and six inches long. Sometimes the sheets are of brass,
beautifully lacquered, and the writing heavy and highly decorative.
These books also vary greatly in size, some forming truly massive and
sumptuous volumes. Birch bark was also employed as a book material in
India, being used in what we should call quarto sheets, and in Farther
India a peculiar roll is in use, made of Chinese paper, folded at the
side, sewed at the top, and rolled up like a manifold banner in a cover
of orange-colored or brown cotton cloth.

We do not ordinarily associate books with pre-Columbian America; yet one
of the most interesting of all book forms was current in Mexico before
the Conquest. As in the case of the Chinese book, it looks superficially
like ours; we think it is a tiny quarto until we see that its measure is
rather that of an oblong twenty-fourmo; that is, its dimensions are just
scant of five inches high and six inches