To return to the process, which is sufficiently simple in practice, though difficult to be understood from a verbal or written description. The wooden scroll is secured, in a way that admits of its turning, at the bottom of a small frame that a little resembles one of the ordinary frames on which females extend their needlework. This frame is secured. Threads of silk are attached to screws in the upper part of the frame, and their lower ends are made to adhere to the outer end of the manuscript, by means of the white of eggs and goldbeater’s skin. These threads, of which there are several along the edge of the manuscript, are tightened gently, by means of the screws, like fiddle-strings, and then the workman commences separating the folds by inserting the thin blade of a proper instrument. If the manuscript has a hole, or it yields, it is strengthened by applying goldbeater’s skin. It is gradually—and very gradually, as you may suppose—unrolled by tightening the threads, until a piece is raised as high as the frame, where it is examined by a man of letters and carefully copied. The letters, owing to the chemical properties of the ink, are more easily distinguished than one would at first imagine. The colour is all black, or a dark brown; but the letters are traced by a species of cavities in the substance,—or perhaps it were better to say, by offering a different surface,—for the whole fabric is almost reduced to the consistence of gossamer. The unrolled manuscript has more or less holes in it, and the vacancies in the text are to be guessed at. We saw people busily employed in all the stages of the process. Some were mere mechanics, others scholars capable of reading the Latin, and of detecting the more obscure words, as well as of comprehending the abbreviations. The first copy, I believe, in all instances, is a facsimile; after which it is turned over to a higher class of scholars, to have the vacuums in the text conjectured, if possible, and for commentaries and examination.