As already indicated, the writing materials in use in different places and at different times have varied greatly. Obviously anything capable of receiving an impression or bearing a mark of any kind may be used as material for receiving records or bearing communications.

The surface of a stone, a bone, or a shell, a flat piece of wood, bark or leaf of a tree, a plate of metal, the facet of a gem, any one of a thousand things can be used and has been used for this purpose. The Egyptians and Greeks were in the habit of using the fragments of broken pottery for their less important records. The materials which have been most used, however, have been the Assyrian clay tablet, which has been already described, papyrus, vellum, and paper.

Papyrus was made from a reed which grew abundantly in the Nile Valley and less abundantly in some other places. It is now nearly extinct but it grows in small quantities in Sicily, where papyrus is still made for sale to tourists but not in commercial quantities. The reed was called by the Greeks “bublos,” or “biblos,” from which the Greeks got the word biblion, a book, and we get the words bible, bibliography, etc.

Papyrus was made by cutting the stalk of the reed lengthwise into very thin strips. These strips were laid side by side on a board until the desired width was obtained. Another layer of shorter strips was then laid across the long ones entirely covering them. This mat, or “net” as it was technically called, was then soaked in the water of the Nile. Whether there was any particular virtue in the Nile water, which is always more or less charged with mud, or the desired result was obtained simply by the action of water on the reed itself, is not clear. After the soaking was completed, the “net” was dried in the sun, hammered to expel air and water, polished by rubbing with some hard smooth substance, and probably sized, although it is possible that all the sizing necessary was provided by the sap of the reed itself. The sheets were then trimmed even and joined by the edges into a long strip, usually of about twenty sheets. This was rolled on a stick and was then ready for sale as writing material. The quality of the papyrus varied according to the part of the reed from which the strips were cut, and it was the commercial custom to put sheets of varying quality into the same strip or roll. The best sheets were put on the end which would come on the outside of the roll, grading down to the worst at the other end. This was done for two reasons: first, in order that the best material should come where it would receive the most wear, and secondly in order that in case the roll was not entirely used the waste part should be of inferior quality. Papyrus continued to be used as the general writing material of the civilized world until about the time of Christ, and held its place for certain purposes until the 11th century, at which period we find it still used for Papal Bulls and other important documents. It was revived in Egypt by the Copts, as the people of Egypt were then called, in the 7th century and was used by them extensively until the middle of the 13th.

Parchment-roll, or volumen. (Our word volume comes from volumen.) From very early ages, leather was more or less used as writing material, but in the 2nd century B.C., owing, it is said, to the scarcity and high price of papyrus, Eumenes II, King of Pergamus, a city of Asia Minor, invented or caused to be invented, a writing material made of dressed skins. These skins were not tanned but were dressed by another method which left them flexible but gave them a smooth hard surface which could be easily written on. This material was called, from the name of the city, pergamena, from which we get our “parchment.” This term is now practically reserved for sheepskins which are harder than other skins used for the purpose. Parchment was long used for legal documents and is still used for college diplomas and other similar purposes. The general term, however, for this type of writing material, which was made from a variety of skins, is vellum. Vellum, of course, came in sheets, and while a single sheet might be rolled as diplomas are to this day rolled for delivery, it was ordinarily used in the sheet form and played an important part in the development of the book.

In the manufacture of vellum the skins of a variety of the smaller animals were used. For example, the famous Alexandrian codex, one of the oldest known copies of the Bible, is written on antelope skin. The skin was first carefully cleaned and the hair removed by soaking in a solution of lye. It was then thoroughly scraped with a knife to remove all fatty or soft parts. It was then rubbed down with pumice stone. Finally it was polished with agate.

Paper is said to have been invented by the Chinese at an unknown but very early date. It was introduced to Europe by the Arabs about the 10th century A.D. It was made of linen or rags and did not vary greatly from the rag paper of to-day. As the process of manufacture is fully described in the book on paper (No. 13) of this series, description is not necessary here. Paper was not much used in Europe until the invention of printing. Being much less substantial than vellum it did not commend itself for the making of manuscript books. Paper was, however, immediately found to be much better suited to printing than any other material, and with the advent of the printed book it very quickly drove other writing materials out of common use. Owing to its having some resemblance to papyrus it was given the old name, the word paper being derived from papyrus.

Late in the 19th century a new writing material made of wood or other flexible fibre treated with chemicals and loaded with clay was invented, to which we also give the name paper. This new material has almost entirely driven the old rag paper out of the field and is now the paper of commerce. Much of this material is far inferior to rag paper. The inferior qualities of it, at any rate, lack durability even when not exposed to wear. It is good enough for the great number of uses where permanence is not required. It should only be used for books of permanent value, especially for records and historical material, when there can be no doubt of the care used in the manufacture and the quality of the fibre employed. A 15th-century book on rag paper is as good to-day as the day it was printed. Most of the paper now in use possesses no such lasting qualities.

In addition to these three leading materials, much use has been made of tablets (Latin tabella). The commonest form of tablet was a thin board with one or both sides slightly cut away in such a way as to leave a narrow rim all around. The shallow depression inside this rim was then filled with wax sufficiently stiff to hold its position in ordinary temperatures but sufficiently soft to be easily marked with a sharp instrument called a stylus. The writing could be easily erased by rubbing with a hard smooth object, perhaps a ball at the reverse end of the stylus, and the wax was then ready for another impression. Sometimes these tablets were made of wood covered with paint or a composition from which the writing could be easily washed off. This was the prototype of the schoolboy’s slate of to-day and was used for the same purpose. While tablets were ordinarily used for writing of a purely temporary nature, they were occasionally used for permanent records and especially for correspondence. Two or more tablets could be put together with the wooden sides out, bound, and sealed. In this way the writing was secure from observation or interference and the tablets were less liable to injury than papyrus or vellum. Tablets were used at a very early period and continued to be used, especially for correspondence, all through the middle ages and into the 16th century. Sometimes a considerable number of them would be fastened with thongs by one edge so as to form a continuous document which was one of the precursors of the modern book. The British Museum has a document of this sort consisting of nine leaves about 7 x 9 inches. The writing on it is in shorthand, which is by no means a modern contrivance. This particular document is of Greek origin and dates from about the 3d century A.D.

The ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and other peoples of remote antiquity used inks made of charcoal or soot mixed with gum, glue, or varnish. Similar compositions were used to a late date. The Romans made extensive use of sepia, the coloring substance obtained from the cuttlefish. Irongall inks, inks that consist of an iron salt and tannin, were invented by an 11th century monk named Theophilus. Of course these inks were mixed with coloring matter, and other paints and pigments were used in the preparation of manuscripts. The earlier printing inks were made of lampblack and linseed oil. The subject of printing inks is fully discussed in No. 12 of this series of text-books. The ink was ordinarily applied by means of reeds which were either beaten out at the end into fine brushes so that the characters were painted rather than written, or sharpened and split at the end like a modern pen. Later the quill of the goose or some other large bird, cut to a point and split, largely took the place of the reed and continued to be the writer’s tool for centuries. In later years they have been displaced by the modern pen of steel or gold. It is interesting to note that bronze pens imitating quills were used by the Romans and some specimens are still preserved.