Ossian Collection > Thoughts on the origin and descent of the Gael

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is put beyond doubt by the Gaelic, as well as
their own improved languages.
It is a fact established beyond the possibility
of question, tiiat many nations made use of the
barks of trees as paper, or as a substance proper
for receiving and retaining written characters.
Both the Ptomans and Greeks preserved the ori-
ginal word for the substance first used by them
as paper, to denote in after times the Egyptian
paper, to which, after the disuse of the original
substance known to them as best fitted for pre-
serving written characters, they applied their
original name for that substance, viz. carta or
charta. It is curious to observe, that the Gaelic
word ^ox bark is cart; a chart, the bark. The
Latins wrote carta and charta, the Greeks xae^r^..
This circumstance indicates plainly, that the
progenitors of the Greeks and Romans at some
very early period used the bark of trees as paper,
and that they continued the use of that sub-
stance for receiving written characters, until tliey
became acquainted with other materials better
adapted to the purposes of preserving, by writ-
ten signs, knowledge of historical events, and
of the sentiments of mankind, upon all subjects
which claimed the attention of the human mind.
Guilandinus has observed, that Cassius Hemina,
the annalist, lived in the time of Augustus and
Tiberius, to whom he dedicated his work : if so,
he was posterior in time to Varro, and predeceas-
ed Pliny not above seventy years; for retustissi-