Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1891 — Written with an Iron Pen. [ARTICLE]

Written with an Iron Pen.

The earliest mention of writing in the Bible his probably found in the book of Job. “0,” says the patriarch,“that my words were now written: 0 thut they were printed in a book, that they wore graven with an iron- pen.” The method of writing here alluded to is still practiced in the island of Ceylon. There all the old manuscripts are written in Pali—a language not now spoken —upon the leuves of the tuliput palm. These leaves aro' cut into strips of the requirod length and ure then carefully dried. In writing an iron pen or stylus is used. It is guided by a notch cut in the thumb-nail, and the murks so engraved are rendered plain by being rubbed with a dark dye extracted from the juice of the palm. A short distance from the end of each leaf-strip a hole is made, and a couple of colored cords, passing through thecovors and leaf-strips, bind the whole together as a book. The covers are made of the wood, and the cords of the fiber of the palm, and to give a finish to the whole, the edges of the leaves and the covers are generally dyed red.