Knight's American mechanical dictionary : a description of tools, instruments, machines, processes and engineering, history of inventions, general technological vocabulary ; and digest of mechanical appliances in science and the arts . Mahomet it is recorded that hisdisciples wrote parts of the Koran on the shoulder-blades of sheep, which they strung together. Aiabjioetry was not unfrcquently inscribed on thesescapula:, probably trimmed for the purpose. The Alexandrian Library contained the works ofHomer written in golden letters on the .skins of ani-mals ; and the Iliad and Odyssey, written i
Knight's American mechanical dictionary : a description of tools, instruments, machines, processes and engineering, history of inventions, general technological vocabulary ; and digest of mechanical appliances in science and the arts . Mahomet it is recorded that hisdisciples wrote parts of the Koran on the shoulder-blades of sheep, which they strung together. Aiabjioetry was not unfrcquently inscribed on thesescapula:, probably trimmed for the purpose. The Alexandrian Library contained the works ofHomer written in golden letters on the .skins of ani-mals ; and the Iliad and Odyssey, written in goldenletters on the entrails of animals, collectively 120feet long, were extant at < onstantinople in the icignof the Emperor Basileus. Other instances are knownof the use of entrails for this purpose. Before papjTus became common, the lonians usedinstead the skins of sheep and goats, on whichmaterial, says Herodotus, the barbarians are evennow wont to write. Ctesias says he obtained thematter for his Persian history from the royalparchments or skins. The invention of parch-ment is, however, ascribed to Eumenes, king of Per-gamos, about 200 B. c. For notices of papyrus and parchment, see P.^pek. PEN. 1652 PEN. .:rf*» ^^. Tlu former particularly concern the the stylus. That of the pen proper will now claimour attention, after we liave stated that the brush hasbeen used for many centuries in Eastern Asia, and stillholds its career of usefulness in forming the Chinese !and Japanese letters. It has even been suggested that the brush pre-Fig- 3608. ceded the pen, B^i- as the picture ^^ J5P^ or ideograiihic% .-is writing pre-ceded ;tlielanguage ofsymbols, thatof arbitrarysigns denotingsounds. The charac-ters of somewritten lan-guages arewell adaptedfor the brush,and the skilldisplayed byChinese gen-tlemen is cu-rio u s andpleasing to usJapan, s, Scribr. their neigh- bors, uponwhom the ends of the world are come, in a sense,for we
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