It has relation to our discussion and is of illustrative interest and value while considering ancient literature to note, in this connection, some characteristics of these preëminent manuscripts of the Bible to which we have just alluded. The Sinaitic Manuscript--one of the most valuable copies of the scriptures in the Greek tongue--was unearthed by Professor Tischendorf in the convent of St. Catharine, Mt. Sinai, in 1859, and dates, in the judgment of the critics, from the middle of the fourth century A. D. This Manuscript is transcribed on 346½ leaves of vellum, each leaf being 13½ inches in width and 14-7/8 inches in height and contains four columns of 48 lines each to a page, or eight columns to the open book. The Vatican Manuscript, written at about the same time, has three columns to a page, or six columns to the open book. The Alexandrian Manuscript, written in the fifth century, has two columns to a page. The Ephraem Manuscript, also written in the fifth century, has but a single column to a page. The Sinaitic Manuscript, because of its distinction in having the largest number of columns to a page, has been given, by some of the Biblical scholars, the first rank among the oldest extant copies of the Christian scriptures. The basis for this estimate is, largely, its nearer approach to the ancient rolls with their cross-wise columns. IX PAPYRUS The commonest material upon which to write the records of history and all literature for some centuries, both before and after the time of Christ, was that manufactured from the papyrus plant, or reed, which grew in great abundance in the stagnant pools occasioned by the annual overflow of the Nile;--it grew also in the marshes of the Euphrates, and elsewhere, though for centuries the only source of the papyrus for literature was in Egypt. Papyrus as a material upon which to write was both cheaper and more plentiful than parchment, and for these reasons it was more commonly utilized than any other prior to the invention of paper. The papyrus, while more plentiful and less expensive than parchment, was not inexpensive as a finished commodity; indeed, it was so expensive that the poor were often denied this material for writing. It is recorded that, in the list of expenses relating to the rebuilding of the Erechtheum at Athens (B. C. 407), two sheets of papyri cost at the rate of a drachma and two obols each, or a little over a shilling of our money.[26] The author of an old work gives a quaint description of the plant and of its preparation for use: "It runs up in a triangular stalk to the height of about fifteen feet and is usually about a foot and a half in circumference, sometimes more. When the outer skin is taken off there are several films, or inner skins, one within another and naturally partakable from each other. These, when separated from the stalk and flaked, made the paper which the ancients used, and which, from the name of the tree, they called Papyrus."[27]