recorded history, has this to say: “The clay tablets are both numerous and curious. They are of various sizes, ranging from nine inches long by six and a half wide to an inch and a half long by an inch wide, or even less. Sometimes they are entirely covered by writings, while at others they exhibit on a portion of their surface impressions of seals, mythological emblems, and the like. Some thousands have been recovered. Many are historical, and still more are mythological.” Their use in writing and drawing was almost universal, and we read that the prophet Ezekiel, when dwelling with “them of the captivity at Telabib, that dwelt by the river of Chebar,” was commanded, “Take thee a tile and lay it before thee, and portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem.” (Ezekiel iv. 1.) We get a glimpse of another side of that ancient life in a tablet of Nile clay, preserved in the British Museum, which is one of the earliest specimens of writing now in existence. It is a proposal of marriage, and was written about 1530 B. C., more than thirty-four hundred years ago, by a Pharaoh asking the hand of a daughter of the Babylonian king. Forty years later, in 1491 B. C., the ten commandments were graven on tablets of stone. ♦The works of Homer♦ In the early efforts of men to find a means of preserving in lasting and convenient form the records of their lives and achievements, some queer materials were pressed into service. Plates of metal were used, even the precious gold and silver being employed for the purpose. Skins of animals, tanned to a sort of leather, found favor among many peoples, while their bones, and even their intestines, were by no means disdained. The works of Homer, preserved in one of the great Egyptian libraries in the days of the Ptolemies, were written in letters of gold on the skins of serpents. Ivory was used, also wood and the bark of trees. In the early days of Rome, the reports of notable events were engraved on wooden tablets, which were then exposed to view in public places, and citizens of all classes, mingling freely, according to custom, in the great Forum that was the center of the city’s life, were easily and quickly informed of the important happenings of the day. The greatest defect in this method was remedied when, later on, wax was used to form a surface upon the wood, thus admitting of corrections and erasures, and making it possible to use the same table indefinitely, simply by scraping off the coating after it had served its purpose, and supplying other coatings as they were needed. But the first real advance toward modern writing materials came in the use of the leaves of olive, palm, poplar, and other trees, which were prepared by being cut in strips, soaked in boiling water, and then rubbed over wood to make them soft and pliable. ♦Old materials necessarily discarded♦