so like the natural stone as to defy detection, was a lucrative
profession.

THE PAPYRUS PAPER.--The chief writing material used by the ancient
Egyptians was the noted papyrus paper, manufactured from a reed which grew
in the marshes and along the water-channels of the Nile. From the Greek
names of this Egyptian plant, _byblos_ and _papyrus_, come our words
"Bible" and "paper." The plant has now entirely disappeared from Egypt,
and is found only on the Anapus, in the island of Sicily, and on a
small stream near Jaffa, in Palestine. Long before the plant became
extinct in Egypt an ancient prophecy had declared, "The paper reeds by the
brooks ... shall wither, be driven away, and be no more." (Isa. xix. 7.)
The costly nature of the papyrus paper led to the use of many substitutes
for writing purposes--as leather, broken pottery, tiles, stones, and
wooden tablets.

FORMS OF WRITING.--The Egyptians employed three forms of writing: the
_hieroglyphical_, consisting of rude pictures of material objects,
usually employed in monumental inscriptions; the _hieratic_, an
abbreviated or rather simplified form of the hieroglyphical, adapted to
writing, and forming the greater part of the papyrus manuscripts; and the
_demotic_, or _encorial_, a still simpler form than the hieratic. The last
did not come into use till about the seventh century B.C., and was then
used for all ordinary documents, both of a civil and commercial nature. It
could be written eight or ten times as fast as the hieroglyphical form.

KEY TO EGYPTIAN WRITING.--The key to the Egyptian writing was discovered
by means of the Rosetta Stone. This valuable relic, a heavy block of black
basalt, is now in the British Museum. It holds an inscription, written in
hieroglyphic, in demotic, and in Greek characters. Champollion, a French