Although most authors who speak of parchment attribute the invention of it, on the testimony of Pliny, to Eumenius, king of Pergamus (doubtlessly from the etymology of the word by which it was designated, viz., _Pergamena_), it seems to be proved, according to Peignot, that the use of it is much more ancient, and that its origin is utterly lost. Certainly, in many passages of the Old Testament we find a Hebrew Word, in Latin _volumen_, which can only be understood to mean a roll formed of prepared skin or of the leaves of papyrus, and it is consequently evident that the Jews, from the time of Moses, wrote the tables of the Law on rolls of parchment. Herodotus says that the Ionians called books _diphthera_ (διφθἑρα, a prepared hide), because, at a time when the _biblos_ (βἱβλος, the inner bark of the papyrus) was scarce, they wrote on skins of goats or of sheep. Diodorus Siculus affirms that the ancient Persians wrote their annals on skins, and we must suppose that Pliny’s assertion refers only to some improvements the King of Pergamus had made in the art of preparing a material that could supply the place of papyrus, which Ptolemy Epiphanius would no longer allow to leave Egypt. The absolute deficiency of papyrus raised into activity the fabrication of parchment, and soon so large a quantity was seen to flow into Pergamus that this town was considered as the cradle of the new trade, already so flourishing. There were then books of two kinds, the one in rolls composed of many leaves sewed together, on one side of which only was there writing; the others, square-shaped, were written upon both sides. The grammarian Crates, ambassador of Eumenius at Rome, passed as the inventor of vellum. Ordinary parchment is the skin of a goat, sheep, or lamb, prepared in lime, dressed, scraped, and rendered smooth by pumice-stone. Its principal qualities are whiteness, thinness, and stiffness; but the work of the currier must have been formerly very imperfect, for Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours in the eleventh century, tells us that the writer, before beginning his occupation, “was in the habit of clearing away from the parchment, with the aid of a razor, the remains of fat and other gross impurities, and then with pumice-stone to make the hair and tendons disappear:” this almost amounts to affirming that the scribes bought the hide undressed, and, by an elaborate preparation, made them fit for proper use. Virgin parchment, which in its grain and colour resembles vellum, was made of the skins of those lambs and goats which had been clipped. Vellum, more polished, whiter, more transparent, is made, as its name indicates, of the hide of the calf.[52]