Page:Repository of Arts, Series 1, Volume 01, 1809, January-June.djvu/33

Rh and when it is considered, that any new mode can only be tried on an original and perhaps inestimable manuscript, and that such a trial may possibly cause the irrecoverable destruction of the very treasure we arc in search of, we shall naturally be induced to use the utmost deliberation before we venture on an innovation attended with such manifest danger. A precipitate experiment with steam upon one of the rolls now in England has at once annihilated its substance, by destroying in the space of two minutes the little cohesion of texture which it had possessed before.

Previously to my entering upon the detail of the machinery used for unrolling the manuscripts, it maybe necessary to premise, that, from the effects of volcanic heat, they are reduced to a perfect coal, liable to be crumbled into a black dust by a very feeble pressure of the fingers, such as might be the state of a tight roll of paper after being exposed to the action of an heated oven, without being absolutely ignited: with this favourable difference, however, that, instead of paper, they had been written on papyrus, a substance much stronger and glutinous than I our present writing-paper. They had, like all books of that age, been rolled up with the writing inwards, divided into rectangular spaces, much in the manner of the pages of modern books.

As the different lamina of which the roll is composed, would break off with the slightest touch, a fresh back is successively formed by the application of gold-beaters’ skin affixed with gum-water. But such is the damaged state of the material, that without using very minute patches of gold-beaters’ skin (generally not exceeding the size of a common pea), an upper stratum would often be glued to one or more under ones, through the little holes or breaks which sometimes penetrate several of the lamina. But in order to render myself as intelligible as possible, I beg leave to refer the reader to the annexed drawing, with its accompanying scale.

In proportion as the laborious operation of forming a new back proceeds, the work is gently and progressively wound up by turning the pegs, until one entire page is thus unfolded, which is forthwith separated from the roll and spread on a flat board or frame. A draughtsman, unacquainted with (he language of the manuscript, makes a faithful fac-simile of it, with all its chasms, blemishes, or irregularities.