In the progress of time the art of writing consisted in _painting_ with different kinds of _ink_. This novel mode of writing occasioned them to invent other materials proper to receive their writing; the thin bark of certain _trees_ and _plants_, or _linen_; and at length, when this was found apt to become mouldy, they prepared the _skins of animals_; on the dried skins of serpents were once written the Iliad and Odyssey. The first place where they began to dress these skins was _Pergamus_, in Asia; whence the Latin name is derived of _Pergamenoe_ or _parchment_. These skins are, however, better known amongst the authors of the purest Latin under the name of _membrana_; so called from the membranes of various animals of which they were composed. The ancients had _parchments_ of three different colours, white, yellow, and purple. At Rome white parchment was disliked, because it was more subject to be soiled than the others, and dazzled the eye. They generally wrote in letters of gold and silver on purple or violet parchment. This custom continued in the early ages of the church; and copies of the evangelists of this kind are preserved in the British Museum. When the Egyptians employed for writing the _bark_ of a _plant_ or _reed_, called _papyrus_, or paper-rush, it superseded all former modes, for its convenience. Formerly it grew in great quantities on the sides of the Nile. This plant has given its name to our _paper_, although the latter is now composed of linen and rags, and formerly had been of cotton-wool, which was but brittle and yellow; and improved by using cotton rags, which they glazed. After the eighth century the papyrus was superseded by parchment. The _Chinese_ make their _paper_ with _silk_. The use of _paper_ is of great antiquity. It is what the ancient Latinists call _charta_ or _chartae_. Before the use of _parchment_ and _paper_ passed to the Romans, they used the thin peel found between the wood and the bark of trees. This skinny substance they called _liber_, from whence the Latin word _liber_, a book, and _library_ and _librarian_ in the European languages, and the French _livre_ for book; but we of northern origin derive our _book_ from the Danish _bog_, the beech-tree, because that being the most plentiful in Denmark was used to engrave on. Anciently, instead of folding this bark, this parchment, or paper, as we fold ours, they rolled it according as they wrote on it; and the Latin name which they gave these rolls has passed into our language as well as the others. We say a _volume_, or volumes, although our books are composed of leaves bound together. The books of the ancients on the shelves of their libraries were rolled up on a pin and placed erect, titled on the outside in red letters, or rubrics, and appeared like a number of small pillars on the shelves.[11]