PAPER

                         From papyrus to Pardment to paper - the story of what people have written their words on is a fascinating one. It all started In Egypt over 5,000 years ago. Ancient Egyptians wrote on a material made from the papyrus reed, a plant grown in the delta of the Nile River. They made this "plant paper" by laying strips of the stem tissue side by side and then sticking them together with a crude kind of paste made from bread crumbs soaked in boilling water. In other ancient countries paper called parchment was made from animal skins. But some early South American Indians preferred making their parchment from the skin of .....humans!
   

                         The inventor of paper was a Chinese official named Ts'ai Lun, who first made his paper in 105 A.D. from an assortment of strange ingedients including mulberry and bamboo fibers. fish nets and rags. The Emperor Ho Ti was so pleased with Ts'ai Lun's invention that he made him a rich and important man in his court. Unfortunately, success went to the inventor's head and he become involved in a dangerous intrigue. Rather than be shamed by public exposure, he commited sucide by taking poison. We do not know if he left a sucide note behind, written on the paper he invented.

                     The Chinese jealously guarded the secret of paper making for nearly a 1000 years. Finally, the Moors learned it and brought it with them into Spain and Sicily. From there, it spread throughout Europe and by the 1200s, paper mills were appearing in Italy and else where. Johan Gutenberg gave paper a big boast when he invented the first practical mechanical printing press in 1455. Within next fifty years, thousand of books were being printed all over Europe and paper was much in demand.