12 BOOKBINDING IN THE TIMES OF

sometimes on boards cut off the main body of thetree; and the English word book, derived from theSaxon boc, the root of which is the northern bench,a beach or service tree, evidently shows that thebooks of our ancestors were of a similar fabric. Thuswe find that the leaves of the palm tree,’ and thefinest and thinnest part of the bark of such trees asthe tilia, the philvra, a species of linden, the lime,the ash, the maple, and the elm, were first used whenmen began to extend their writings and disquisi-tions. 1 ’ This custom existed in the time of Ulpian,who mentions it, and even still continues in nationswhere little progress has been made in refinement,copies of books being frequently brought to thiscountry from the east, written on oblong slips ofbark or reed, fastened together by strings at eachend. In Ceylon they still write on the leaves of thetalipot: and the Bramin MSS. in the Talinga lan-guage, sent to England from Fort St. George, arewritten on leaves of the Ampana, or Palma Malaba-rica. z Numbers of these books, executed in a fineand beautiful character, and bound together withboards, may be seen in the library of the East IndiaCompany . A very curious library of this descriptionwas discovered some time ago among the CalmucTartars, by the Russians . The books were exceed-ingly long and narrow, the leaves very thick andmade of bark of trees, smeared over with a double

* Pliny , 1. xiii. 10.- b Astle’s Writing, p 201.- c Horne’s

Bibliography, vol. i. p. 12.