PARCHMENT is the skin of an animal prepared for writing upon. The name is a corruption of the Latin Pergameno, from Pcrgamua, the alleged place of its invention. Parchment is said to have been Invented by Eumenea II., king of Pergamus (who reigned B.C. 197 .]b9), in consequence of the prohibition of the export of papyrus from Egypt by Ptolemy Epiphanes ; but parchment of at least 1000 years earlier date is in the collections of the British Museum. [Papenes.] The probability is, that some improvement was made in the manu facture at Perganaus. The word 1?ergamena was not used until several centuries after the death of Eumenes. Tatto, a monk of the 4th century, is, according to Mabilion, the writer in whose works it is met Previous to his time the usual term was mentbrana, which is the word we find in the Greek Testament, 2 Timothy, iv 13.
The ancient parchment must have been exceedingly fine, if wo are to believe the story of Cicero 's having teen the ` Iliad written on this material enclosed in a nutshell; but for this we have only Pliny's authority. (' Hist. Nat.,' vii., c. 21.) The parchment of the 7th to the 10th century was white and good; and at the earliest of these periods it appears to have nearly superseded papyrus, which was brittle and more perishable. A very few books of the 7th century have leaves of parch ment and papyrus mixed, that the former costly material might strengthen and support the friable paper. About the Ilth century it grew worse. This may possibly have arisen from tho circumstance, that writers of this time prepared their own parchment, and that they were probably not so skilful as manufacturers; and a dirty coloured parchment is evidence of a want of antiquity. A curious from a sermon of Hildebert, archbishop of Tours, who was born in 1044, is a voucher for this fact. The sermon Is on the ' Book of Life,' which he recommends his hearers to obtain. "Do you know what a writer ducat He first cleanses his parchment from the grease, and takes off the principal part of the dirt ; then he entirely rubs off the hair and fibres with pumice-atone ; if be did nut do so, the letters written upon it would not be good, nor would they last long. Ile then rules lines, that the writing may be straight.. All these things you ought to do, if you wish to poems/ the bo k which I have been displaying to you." (Sermon xv., Paris, 17u8, fol.) At this time parchment was a very costly material ; we find it mentiuned that Gut, count of Nevere, hav,ng sent a valuable present of plate to the Chartreux of Paris, the unostentet.otis monk, returned it with a request that he would send
them parchment instead. It had long been customary to erase 'ancient writing from parchment by rubbing it with pumice-gone. When the • custom began we do not know ; but it had became common in the 9th and 10th centuries. [Paultrarsr.] But the invention of Iiuen paper came in aid to the uses of parchment ; and when its manu facture became cheep, it superseded the more costly article for all purposes except those in which luxury was aimed at or uncommon durability required.
Parchment is ordinarily made of the skin of sheep or lambs. For drums it is often made of goat' or wolf 'skins ; the parchment with which church-books are covered is made of pigs' skins. Vellum is a finer, smoother, and whiter sort of parchment, made of the skins of very young calves.
Whatever may be the kind of akin used, the process of manufacturing is the same. When the akin is divested of its hair or wool, it is placed for some time in a lime-pit, and then stretched on a square wooden frame drawn tight by pegs. When in the frame, it is first scraped on the flesh side with a blunt iron, then wetted with n moist rag, covered with pounded chalk, and rubbed well with pumice-stone ; after a short pause, these operations are repeated, but without chalk ; the skin ie then turned and scraped on the hair aide once only ; the flesh eide is scraped once more, and again rubbed over with chalk, which must be brushed off with a piece of lariab-skin retaining the wool. All this is done by the skinner, who allows the skin to dry in the frame, and then cuts it out and sends it to the parchment-maker, who repeats the operations with a sharper tool, using a sack stuffed with flocks to lay the akin upon instead of stretching it in a frame. One of the largest pieces of parchment ever prepared forms part of a drum made by Mr. H. Distin for the Crystal Palace, and first used in Juno, 1860 ; it is 7 feet in diameter.
There is a kind of parchment made from refuse fish. The skin and offal being removed, all the rest is mixed with a dilute solution of soda ashes or carbonate of potash, and then with a dilute solution of muriatic acid. The mass is then pulped, washed over sieves to remove the bones, &c., drained or pressed, and saturated with a dilute solution of bichloride of mercury. When washed thoroughly, the pulp is formed into sheets in the same way as paper ; and these sheets are finally rolled and pressed to equalise the surface. Tho sheets may either be used as parchment or may be tanned into a kind of leather.