Parchment

the skin of a sheep or goat prepared for use as writing material. The name is a corruption of Pergamus, a city of Asia Minor noted for its manufacture. After the Saracens occupied Egypt and cut off the world's supply of papyrus, Pergamus drove an immense business in tanning skins as a substitute for papyrus. In the making of parchment the skins are first soaked in lime to remove the hair. They are then scraped, shaved, washed, stretched, and dried. The surface is rendered smooth and hard by rubbing with fine chalk and pumice stone. Parchment is still in demand for documents of importance, diplomas, bindings, and trimmings. A wolf-skin parchment makes the best drumheads. Vellum is a fine parchment made of the skin of a kid or a young calf. The Eskimos make a kind of parchment from the entrails of seals. They use it for bags, boots, robe linings, and the like. Owing to the expense of parchment the medieval monks were wont to fade the ink of old volumes and use the parchment again. A second-hand roll of this sort was known as a palimpsest. See Papyrus; Paper; Book; Tanning