Note 6 — Early Typography. CHAPTER I.

Plaster casts of inscriptions might also have suggested the same idea. The use of plaster, for the purposes of inscriptions, dates back to a very ancient era. It seems to have been as old as the art of writing itself. We learn from the book of Deuteronomy (xxvii. 2–4), that while the Children of Israel were yet wandering in the desert, after their exodus from Egypt, it was ordained, that when they had passed into Canaan,—the land which should be given them,—great stones, plaistered over with plaister, should be set up, on which stones should be written “very plainly” all the words of the law.