The manner paper was made has been controverted; but whoever will read Pliny[12] attentively, cannot, as I imagine, be long in doubt. The thick part of the stalk being cut in half, the pellicle between the pith and the bark, or perhaps the two pellicles, were stript off, and divided by an iron instrument, which probably was sharp-pointed, but did not cut at the edges. This was squared at the sides so as to be like a ribband, then laid upon a smooth table or dresser, after being cut into the length that it was required the leaf should be. These stripes, or ribbands of papyrus, were lapped over each other by a very thin border, and then pieces of the same kind were laid transversely, the length of these answering to the breadth of the first. The book which I have is eleven inches and a half long, and seven inches broad, and there is not one leaf in it that has a ribband of papyrus of two inches and a half broad, from which I imagine the size of this plant, formerly being fifteen feet long, was pretty near the truth. No such plant, however, appears now; I do not remember to have ever seen one more than ten feet high. This is probably owing to their being allowed to grow wild, and too thick together, without being weeded; we know from Herodotus[13], that the Egyptians cut theirs down yearly as they did their harvest. These ribbands, or stripes of papyrus, have twelve different names in Pliny[14], which is to be copious with a vengeance. They are, philura, ramentum; scheda, cutis, plagula, corium, tænia, subtegmen, statumen, pagina, tabula, and papyrus. After these, by whatever name you call them, were arranged at right angles to each other, a weight was placed upon them while moist, which compressed them, and so they were suffered to dry in the sun. It was supposed that the water of the Nile[15] had a gummy quality necessary to glue these stripes together. This we may be assured is without foundation, no such quality being found in the water of the Nile. On the contrary, I found it of all others the most improper, till it had settled, and was absolutely divested of all the earth gathered in its turbid state. I made several pieces of this paper, both in Abyssinia and Egypt, and it appears to me, that the sugar or sweetness with which the whole juice of this plant is impregnated, is the matter that causes the adhesion of these stripes together, and that the use of the water is no more than to dissolve this, and put it perfectly and equally in fusion.