It is said that the skins of 300 sheep were used in every copy of the first printed Bible. Hence the old saying, "It takes a flock of sheep to write a book." What would have been the comment in olden times, to learn that it takes almost a forest of trees to print the Sunday edition of some of our great newspapers? Wax (shoemakers') was first employed on documents A. D. 1213, although it was white wax which was used to seal the magna charta, granted to the English barons by King John, A. D. 1215. In 1445 red wax was much employed in England, but the earliest specimen of red sealing wax extant is found on a letter dated August 3, 1554. Pliny enumerates and describes eight different kinds of papyrus paper: 1. Charter hieratica--sacred paper, used only for books on religion. From adulation of Augustus it was also called charta augusta and charta livia. 2. Charta amphitheatrica--from the place where it was fabricated. 3. Charta fannia--from Fannius, the manufacturer. 4. Charta saitica--from Sais in Egypt. This appears to have been a coarser kind. 5. Charta toeniotica--from the place where made, now Damietta. This was also of a less fine quality. 6. Charta claudia. This was an improvement of the charta hieratica, which was too fine. 7. Charta emporitica. A coarse paper for parcels. There was also a paper called macrocollum, which was of a very large size. Of all these, he says, the charta claudia was the best. The ink-written rolls of papyrus were placed vertically in a cylindrical box called capsula. It is very evident that a great number of such volumes might be comprised in this way within a small space, and this may tend to explain the smallness of the rooms which are considered to have been used for containing the ancient libraries. At Mentz, in Upper Germany, is a leaf of parchment on which are fairly written twelve different kinds of handwritings in six different inks also a variety of miniatures and drawings curiously done with a pen by one Theodore Schubiker, who was born without hands and performed the work with his feet. In Rome the very plate of brass on which the laws of the ten tables are written is still to be seen. Stylographic inks should not be used upon records, most of them are aniline. The absence of solid matter, which makes them desirable for the stylographic pen, unfits them for records. Never add water to ink. While an ink which has water as its base might, under certain conditions bear the addition of an amount equal to that lost by evaporation, as a rule the ink particles which have become injured will not assimilate again. One of the best methods to cleanse a steel pen after use, is to stick it in a raw (white) potato.