The papyrus plant grows in the swamps by the Nile to a height of about ten feet. The pith of its tall stalks is first cut into strips; next the latter are placed one by another upon a wetted board and smeared over with a paste. On these there is next laid a second layer forming a cross pattern or kind of net work. Then the whole combination is pressed and beaten down into a solid sheet and smoothed with an ivory knife or a shell. After that it is ready for export from Egypt and to be put to proper use. [Illustration: BOOK CONTAINER.] The papyrus trade is well standardized. There are eight well-recognized grades of the commodity. The best is _hieratica_, so called because it is fine and firm enough to be used by the Egyptian priests for their sacred books. The cheapest is _emporetica_, not fit for writing but only for wrapping parcels. The intermediate qualities answer for the run of books. When the papyrus sheets are ready separately, either they can be pasted together at once into a long scroll making a complete volume, or first the book can be written off and the sheets pasted later. =186. Size and Format of Books.=--Books can, therefore, be of all sizes but everybody usually agrees with the Greek saying, “_Big book, big evil!_” It is an indescribable nuisance to fumble over a roll of more than a certain length hunting for a desired passage. Not many volumes run over 100 pages,[113] and many are much smaller. Each sheet constitutes a separate page (varying between six to twelve inches high), with the writing usually in a single column, four to six inches broad, on each page, and a blank space crossed by a red line before the next page begins. [Illustration: DOUBLE INKSTAND.] It is impossible to read with any convenience writing on more than one side of the papyrus prepared in this manner. The result is that discarded books are often used for schoolboys’ exercises or for mere scribbling “paper”; although, if the papyrus is very firm, often the writing can be sponged out and a whole new work can be written over the vanished sentences. Books being of this character, it is impossible really to prepare the “ponderous tomes” of a later day. “Volumes” are very short. The Iliad of Homer is ordinarily in twenty-four separate rolls, one for each of its “books”, and the same arrangement obtains for other standard works. Very many “books” in the Roman libraries, therefore, are really little more than pamphlets. [Illustration: PEN AND SCROLL.] For writing on parchment, of course, one cannot use the stylus. Reed pens skilfully cut may suffice, with a thick ink made of lampblack and gum for ordinary purposes and also a red ink, rich and permanent, for ornamental lines. In Calvus’s library, as in almost every other, are two large beautifully wrought ink wells, made of bronze with silver chasings, and attached together--one for the black ink and one for the red.