Memphis as yet knew not to form in leaves The wat’ry Byblos. Pliny calls it a wonderful invention,(384) so useful to life, that it preserves the memory of great actions, and immortalizes those who achieved them. Varro ascribes this invention to Alexander the Great, when he built Alexandria; but he had only the merit of making paper more common, for the invention was of much greater antiquity. The same Pliny adds, that Eumenes, king of Pergamus, substituted parchment instead of paper, in emulation of Ptolemy, king of Egypt, whose library he was ambitious to excel by this invention, which had the advantage over paper. Parchment is the skin of a sheep dressed and made fit to write upon. It was called Pergamenum from Pergamus, whose kings had the honour of the invention. All the ancient manuscripts are either upon parchment, or vellum, which is calf-skin, and a great deal finer than the common parchment. It is very curious to see white fine paper wrought out of filthy rags picked up in the streets. The plant Papyrus was useful likewise for sails, tackling, clothes, coverlets, &c.(385) Linum. Flax is a plant whose bark, full of fibres or strings, is useful in making fine linen. The method of making this linen in Egypt was wonderful, and carried to such perfection, that the threads which were drawn out of them, were almost too small for the observation of the sharpest eye. Priests were always habited in linen, and never in woollen; and all persons of distinction generally wore linen clothes. This flax formed a considerable branch of the Egyptian trade, and great quantities of it were exported into foreign countries. The manufacture of flax employed a great number of hands in Egypt, especially of the women, as appears from that passage of Isaiah, in which the prophet menaces Egypt with a drought of so terrible a nature, that it should interrupt every kind of labour. “Moreover, they that work in fine flax, and they that weave network, shall be confounded.”(386) We likewise find in Scripture, that one effect of the plague of hail, called down by Moses upon Egypt, was the destruction of all the flax which was then bolled.(387) This storm was in March. Byssus. This was another kind of flax extremely fine and delicate, which often received a purple dye.(388) It was very dear; and none but rich and wealthy persons could afford to wear it. Pliny, who gives the first place to the Asbeston or Asbestinum, (_i.e._ the incombustible flax,) places the Byssus in the next rank; and says, “that the dress and ornaments of the ladies were made of it.”(389) It appears from the Holy Scriptures, that it was chiefly from Egypt that cloth made of this fine flax was brought: “fine linen with broidered work from Egypt.”(390)