proccas of manufacture, as described by Pliny, was to cut off both ends of the plant, the pextion used was neither the outer hark nor the Inner pith, but seine twenty layers or pellicles under the rind surrounding the triangular stalk, those nearest the centre being the finest, which were separated by a needle. These were laid side by side upon a board, and other layers, phily-rre, were placed at right angles on them, so as to cover them, and the whole cemented with Nile water, or more probably a fine glue. By continuing this process, it was possible to make the piece of any length and breadth required ; and the whole WWI pressed, Lenten with a hammer, and rubbed with tooth or shell, it was then pared, smoothed, laid in the sun, bound together and rolled out. The size and quality of this paper differs considerably, the greatest breadth being 1 foot 6 inches, or the lesser cubit ; but some are not more than 4 inches, while the quality varies from a coarse and stringy to a silky material remarkably- fine and smooth. The length was, of course, quite arbitrary, the longest pieces, such as the hieroglyphical ritual at Leyden, measuring GO feet, while other portions do not exceed a few inches. The papyrus of the 18th dynasty is generally about 13 inches wide, and of a pale brownish white colour ; that of the 19th dynasty measures 9 and 11 inches, and is of a dark colour, those of the 20th aro 14,, 11, 8, and 5 inches, and are of whiter colour and stouter texture ; in the 21st, the papyrus is Si and 5 inches wide, and of dark colour. Some of the papyri of the subsequent dynasties are 1 foot 6 inches, or 1 foot, or Vi inches wide, of whiter oolour but coarser texture, and at the time of the 26th dynasty, the material is remarkably fine and white, but occasionally as narrow as 6 inches. The demotic contracts under the Ptolemies are written on a yellowish-brown papyrus of the average width of II inches, and about 20 long, while the Greek papyri, undo the Ptolemies and Romans, measure about 124-14 inches wide; the rituals,1 foot, 10 inches, 9i inches, and then, as well as the Roman rituals, from 1 foot to 9i or 4 inches, are of a stout and whiter material, not, however, so fine as those of the 26th dynasty.
The darkness of colour is probably owing to the greater age, those of the oldest period being generally the darkest and almost of a sienna colour, the material having carbonised with age, while the later are generally, but not always, white ; but there can be no doubt that the contact of the rituals with the hot bitumen of the mummies has in many instances rendered the colour darker, the hieratic historical papyri, said to have been found in vases are, however, extremely dark. Papyri are found under various circumstances, but principally in con nection with the mummies, as in their hands, under their arms, between their legs, or under the bandages stretched all over them like a shroud. They are generally, however, of a cylindrical form rolled upon them selves, the first page, of course, being outwards, and those of letters are scaled with a clay beat. The rituals are often placed in wooden cases, made in shape of Osiris, or Ptah Socharie Osiris, hidden in niches made for that purpose, or in the hollowed body of the deity, or else in a niche in the pedestal, so skilfully covered, joined, and painted as to elude detection by the eye. The historical and documentary papyri are said to be found in vases, boxes, and coffins.
The ink with which the Egyptians wrote on this material was an animal carbon, apparently mixed with oil ; they used for the purpose a long rectangular palette or canon, from 1 ft. 8 to 9 inches long, and from 2 to 1i feet in width, having two small cells or hollows which held a small quantity of red and black ink, the pens used were a thin, cylindrical and fibrous reed, called kaslt, the ends of which when split form a kind of natural brush. The writing is according to the nature
of the document, the hieroglyphical in vertical lines of thin linear hieroglyphs, the hieratic and demotic in broader and thicker elm. racters, generally about 10 lines to a page of 9 or 11 inches long, and in black and red characters. Compositions of the nature of books, are written with great care and regularity, official documents less so, and with characters of larger dimensions at the cominencenient. The religious compositions are ornamented with pictures or vignettes, traced with great delicacy, and sometimes brilliantly coloured with simple colours, and even gilded.
Considered as the looks and docinnenta of ancient Egypt, the papyri are of the greatest importance to the knowledge of the history and literature. They consist of Hermetic writings, religious and moral books, civil documents, and literary compositions in three kinds of writing, besides tuanuscripta in Greek of the highest literary import ance. The most often repeated and extensively found, is the so-called ritual of the Dead, a copy or abridgment of which in one of the three writings was deposited with every mummy of consequence from the 15th dynasty to the lt"man epoch.
This Book of Departure from the Day, and entrance into the future state, is a composition which can be traced as early as the 4th dynasty, or the pyramid builders, copies of which, moro or leas complete, exist in all the museums of Europe, there being probably 200 papyri relating to it In Europe. One of the copies at Leyden measures 60 feet, another in the British 31uscum still more ; but the most complete example is the so-called ritual of Turin, written about the time of the l'tolemles, and published by Lepsius in the Todtenbuch.' The earliest exeinplee MT of the mugs of the 18th dynasty, or about D.C. 1500, with large cursive hieroglyphe written in retrograde lines ; there are several of the ago of the 19th dynasty, or about B.C. 1000, and one in the British Museum was made for an officer of the court of Seti I. In the subsequent dynasties the rituals are often abridged, a few of the principal chapters, chiefly- those relating to the heart being given, and generally in the hieratic hand-writing which prevailed in the 26th, or Saito dynasty, which closed u.c. 625, when the hieroglyphs. if need, are smaller, but still neatly written, and the papyrus remarkably white and fine. Under the Ptolemies and Romans, mere extracts or short papyri containing excerpts of those sacred books were given ; and under the Roman empire, the muunnies had the allowance reduced to a single chapter. The rituals are divided into books, 'Acta, which are again subdivided into chapters, and the whole comprised in volumes, Jame. The sheets are called ses/it, perhaps the Roman sckcda, the pages seek the pictures, Wier. These vignettes, one of which accem pailies each chapter, are placed above the text, and represent the principal action of the chapter, the subject of which and the com mencement, as well as the directions and especial words in the text are written in red ink, and are called tarr teskr, or " rubric." The ritual was an inspired book, and was supposed to have been dictated and written by the god Thoth himself, and the collection of which it was composed assured to the soul a transit through the purgatory and other regions of the dead, the immortality of the future life, and its union with the body, the passage to the future judgment and acquittal, protection against decay and consequent transmigration, and directions for a variety of spells of a magical nature, especially for the preservation of the heart : the most remarkable part of the doctrine is the distinct enunciation of the immortality of the soul at the remote period of sac. 2000, everywhere spoken of as the acknowledged dogma of Egyp.