Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/517

 12 s. ii. DEC. 23, i9i6.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Syracuse, continue to make it [papyrus paper], and sheets from the plant which still grows in the small rivulet formed by the fountain of Cyane, near Syracuse, are offered to travellers as curious specimens of an obsolete manufacture. I have seen some of these small sheets of papyrus. The manner of placing the pieces is the same as that practised in former times ; but the quality of the paper is very inferior to that of Ancient Egypt, owing either to the preparation of the slices of the stalk before they are glued together, or to the coarser texture of the plant itself, certain spots occurring here and there throughout the surface, which are never seen on those discovered in the Egyptian tombs."

The manufacture of papyrus at Syracuse in modern times is further referred to by M. Dureau de la Malle in the Memoir es de r Academic des Inscriptions for 1851. He says :

"Un jeune Anglais, M. Stoddhart [sic], quo j'ai connu en 1834 quand ce me"moire e"tait acheve', a fabrique" & Syracuse avec le papyrus de Sicile un papier tout semblable aux anciens papyrus recueillis dans les tombeaux egyptiens : il a donne aux Bibliotheques du roi et oe 1'Institut deux tableaux contenant des e"chantillons de toutes sortes de papiers propres a 1'e'criture ou i 1'im- pression qu'il a tires du papyrus syracusien," &c.

I beg to add a few bibliographical notes which I hope will be useful to DR. HUBBY.

Wilkinson is specially valuable. He is brief, but he is accurate in describing the methods used. I fear that comparatively few people are aware what a vast body of knowledge is contained in Birch's edition of Wilkinson. The most complete survey of the whole subject is by M. Dureau de la Malle, and is in the Memoires de V Academic des Inscriptions for 1851, vol. xix. pp. 140-83. This paper has the substance of a whole book in it, and various headings deal with ' Limites de la croissance et de la culture du papyrus,' ' Limites extremes de 1'usage et de la duree du papier de papyrus,' ' Usages du papyrus,' ' Fabrication du papier,' &c. Pliny has much to say about the making of papyrus; and with Pliny should be read Guilandini's Commentary upon these special papyrus chapters in the naturalist's book.

In The Library Journal, New York, 1878, vol. iii. pp. 323-4, is a brief but very useful article, by Ezra Abbot of Harvard Univer- sity, upon ' Ancient Papyrus and the Mode of making Paper from It. The special value of this article is that it points out some absurd errors into which previous writers on the subject have fallen. The article is filled with useful references. For the manufacture of the paper in Sicily there is Parlatore's ' M^moire sur le papyrus des anciens et sur le papyrus de Sicile,' 1854.

Wattenbach's ' Das Schriftwesen im Mittel- alter,' Leipzig, 1896, has several pages (96-111) packed with references. He agrees in placing Dureau de la Malle's article first in his list of authorities upon papyrus.

The Comte de Caylus contributed to the twenty-third volume of the Academic des Inscriptions a ' Memoire sur le papyrus et sur la fabrication,' pp. 267-320. This is historical and botanical. There is also Montfaucon's ' Dissertation sur la plante appellee papyrus ' in the Academic des Inscriptions, vol. vi. (1729). The article ' Papyrus ' in the last edition of the ' Ency. Brit.' is by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, and is specially good, dealing in detail with the various qualities of papyrus and their names, and also with their various sizes and thicknesses and geographical distri- bution. The article in Larousse's ' Dic- tionary ' is packed with facts and a marvel of condensation, and gives among his authorities ' Essai sur les livres dans 1' antiquit6,' par Geraud, 1838, and also Egger, ' Le papier dans 1'antiquite et dans les temps mod ernes,' 1866. Mr. R. W. Sindall's book on ' The Manufacture of Paper,' 1908, is one of the few illustrated authorities. It gives on p. 3 a picture of a sheet of papyrus showing the layers crossing one another. This illustration is, I believe, taken from Mr. L. Evans's ' Ancient Paper- Making,' London, 1896. This appeared at the end of a book upon the Dickinson paper- making firm. Bodoni of Parma issued Domenico Cirillo's ' Cyperus Papyrus ' (now a very rare book).

There is an article in The Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. xv., 1855, ' On Papyrus and Other Plants which can furnish Fibre for Paper Pulp.' Matthias Koops's ' Historical Account of the Substances used to convey Ideas from the Earliest Date to the Invention of Paper ' may contain some facts, but I have not looked at it. There are a few modern books, specially Karabacek's ' Das Arabis^he Papier,' Vienna, 1887; C. Paoli, ' Del Papiro,' Florence, 1878 ; G. Cosentino, ' La Carta di Papiro ' (in Archivio Slorim Siciliano, 1889, pp. 134-64) ; G. Ebers, ' The Papyrus Plant,' in The Cosmopolitan Magazine, vol. xv. C. M. Briquet, who is the greatest authority on water- marks, issued at Berne in 1888 ' Le Papier Arabe au moyen age et sa fabrication.' Last and by no means least, Cross and Sevan's book upon the manufacture of paper (Spon) is by two eminent paper analysts and chemists.

A. L. HUMPHREYS. 187 Piccadilly, W.