WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

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these two the "shekel of the sanctuary," so frequently noticed in the Mosaic law, corresponds, but probably to the latter. We are not informed what the distinction between the two was, and it has been supposed by some interpreters that the expressions "king's," and "according to the sanctuary," merely mean that they should be the full legal weight. According to another view, however, the common shekel was only half of the royal shekel, and on this ground it may be explained that the pound or maneh in Ezekiel amounted to only 50 shekels, but according to 1 Kings x. 17, to 100.

To compute the value of the Hebrew weights in our own system it will only be necessary for us to observe that the shekel, or (if there were two) the royal shekel, equals in weight 10 dwts., and in value a little more than 28. 34d. In the New Testament period the Roman and Greek coins had been introduced into Palestine, and we have the following Roman coins noticed the mite; the quadrans or farthing, equal to 2 mites; the as, also translated "farthing" in our version, equal to 4 quadrantes; and the denarius or penny, equal to 10 asses. Of the Greek coins the mina, or pound, and the talent, equalling 60 minæ, are noticed. The Roman denarius or penny equals 83d. of our money; the Greek talent varied in value in different countries, but at Athens it equalled 2437. 15s., and the mina or pound, 47. 18.

The standard measure for dry goods was the homer or cor, the latter of which is noticed in 1 Kings iv. 22 (see margin) it contained 2 lethechs (Hos. iii. 2, margin) or 10 ephahs: the ephah contained 3 seahs or "measures" (1 Sam. xxv. 18; Matt. xiii. 33), and 10 seahs or "deals" (Lev. xiv. 10; Num. xv. 4); while the seah contained 6 cabs. The homer is supposed to have equalled about 8 bushels of our measure.

The standard measure for liquids was the bath, which contained 6 hins, while the hin contained 12 logs. The bath was the tenth part of the homer according to

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MEASURES OF LENGTH.

Ezekiel xlv. 11. In addition to these Jewish measures we have in the New Testament notice of the Greek metrétes, which equals 8 gall. 7 pints of our measure (John ii. 6). The Hebrew "bath" is said by Josephus (Ant. viii. 2, § 9) to have equalled the Greek metrétes, but this is doubtful.

Lastly, the smaller measures of length were the reed, equalling 6 cubits, the cubit equalling 2 spans, the span equalling 3 hand-breadths, and the hand-breadth equalling 4 fingers. The cubit varied in length at different periods, and hence we have in 2 Chronicles iii. 3, the addition "after the first measure ;" and in Ezekiel xl. 5, "six cubits long by the cubit and an hand-breadth;" and again in xli. 8, "six great cubits." The ordinary length of the cubit may be stated at 1 foot 9 inches of our measure.

WRITING AND WRITING MATERIALS.

INVENTION OF WRITING.-EARLY NOTICES OF IT.-MATERIALS. -SKINS.-ROLLS.-PAPER.-PEN.-PALM-LEAF PAPER.—INK. -INKHORN.-SEALS.-INSCRIBING ON METAL OR STONE.WRITING ON SMALL STONES.-TABLETS.-WRITING IN THE DUST.-WRITING A PROFESSION IN THE EAST.

THE discovery of the art of writing was an event of the first importance to the progress of civilization and religion among mankind. As in the case of many other useful discoveries, its author is wholly unknown to us. It is conjectured, indeed on good grounds, that the discovery was made in the west of Asia among the nations intimately connected by race with the Hebrews at all events the alphabet of the Hebrews, which is the original of the Greek, the Roman, and the

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MATERIAL FOR WRITING.

modern European alphabets, was invented, as both the names and the forms of the letters prove, in those parts. There is no instance of the use of writing in the patriarchal age: we cannot, however, infer from this that its use was unknown, inasmuch as persons leading a nomad life would have few occasions for using it. We have numerous allusions to the practice in the Mosaic age, as, for instance, the following:-" The Lord said to Moses, write this for a memorial in a book" (Ex. xvii. 14): "The priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water (Num. v. 23): "Let him write her a bill of divorcement " (Deut. xxiv. 1).

The material which was first used as a substitute for paper was manufactured out of the skins of animals. This appears from the passage just quoted from the book of Numbers, which implies a material from which the writing could be expunged by washing; and again from Jeremiah xxxvi. 23, where a material that admitted of being cut with a knife is described :----" When Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife." This view is confirmed by what Herodotus tells us in his history (v. 58):-" Paper rolls also were called from of old 'parchments' by the Ionians, because formerly when paper was scarce they used instead the skins of sheep and goats, on which material many of the barbarians are even now wont to write." The manufacture of this material was at a later period carried to a great perfection at Pergamus in Asia Minor, from whence the name "parchment" is derived hence we find it still in use in the Apostolic age:-"Bring with thee. . . the books, but especially the parchments" (2 Tim. iv. 13).

A book formed of such material as parchment consisted of very long pages, which were ordinarily rolled up instead of being placed flat. Hence the expressions roll," "scroll," &c., applied to it in the following passages:"Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein

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all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel. . . . So the king sent Jehudi to fetch the roll (Jer.. xxxvi. 2, 21): "And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and lo, a roll of a book was therein; and he spread it before me, and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe " (Ez. ii. 9, 10): “... I looked, and behold, a flying roll the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits. Then said He unto me, This is the curse that goeth over the face of the whole earth" (Zech. v. 1-3): "And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together" (Rev. vi. 14).

The manner of reading in them was by gradually unrolling, rolling up the part read, and opening more. Dr. Buchanan found in India an old copy of the law written on a roll of leather about fifteen feet long; but some of these rolls were as much as a hundred feet in length.* The Rev. J. Hartley, in his travels in Greece, gives the following account of two rolls he found there in a monastery :-"In the monastery I observed two very beautiful rolls of this description; they contained the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, and that attributed by the Greeks to St. James. You began to read by unfolding, and you continued to read and to unfold, till at last you arrived at the stick to which the roll was attached; then you turned the parchment round,. and continued to read on the other side of the roll, folding it gradually up, till you completed the Liturgy. Thus it was written within and without." The parchment and linen were very apt to decay if kept in moist places; Jeremiah therefore ordered Baruch to place the writing mentioned in ch. xxxii. 14, in an earthen vessel, that they might continue many days.t

*Specimens of these leather and papyrus rolls are in the British Museum,

We learn the same fact from the Egyptian papyri in the British Museum.