phosphate being reduced thereby. For this reason many of the Basic Slag.-This other principal phosphatic manure is of more recent origin, and is an undissolved phosphate. It is the waste product of steel-making where the Thomas-Gilchrist or basic process of manufacture has been employed. This process is used with ores containing much phosphorus, the removal of which is necessary in steel-manufacture. The " converters which hold the molten iron are lined with lime and magnesia, and the impurities of the iron form a slag" with these materials. For a long time the slag was regarded as a waste product, but ultimately it was found that, by grinding it very finely, it had distinct agricultural value, and now its use is universal. Basic slag is of various grades, containing 12 to 20% of phosphoric acid, which is believed to exist in the form of a tetracalcic phosphate. This phosphate is found to be readily attacked by a weak solution of citric acid, and this probably accounts for the comparative ease with which plants can utilize the phosphate. With it is also a good deal of lime, and the presence of this undoubtedly, in many cases, accounts partly for the benefits that follow the use of basic slag. It should be very finely ground; a common standard is that 80 to 90% should pass through a sieve having 10,000 meshes to the square inch. from meat-extract manufacture. They vary much in composition, The particular feature that marked guano was that it contained Bats' Guano.-In caves in New Zealand, parts of America, South Africa and elsewhere, are found deposits formed by bats, and these are used to some extent as a manure, though they have no great commercial value. b. Manufactured Manures The principal use of basic slag is on grass-land, especially where the soil is heavy or clayey. Its effect on such land in causing white clover to appear is in many cases most remarkable, and without doubt, much poor, cold grass-land has been immensely benefited by in superphosphate manufacture. It is also employed for root crops; but its effect on these, its use. as on cereals, is not so marked as on grass-land. On light land its benefit is not nearly so great or universal as on heavier land. 64 Dissolved Bones.-These are bones treated with oil of vitriol, as By this treatment bones become much more readily available, and are used to a considerable extent, more especially for root crops. Their composition varies with the method of manufacture and the extent to which they are dissolved. Speaking generally, they will have from 11 to 19% of soluble phosphate, with 20 to 24% of insoluble phosphates, and if pure should contain 3% of nitrogen. When mixed with superphosphate in varying amount, or if made with steamed and not raw bone, they are generally known under the indefinite name of "bone manure. Compound Manures.-To this class belong the manures of every description which it is the aim of the artificial manure manufacturer to compound for particular purposes or to suit particular soils or crops. The base of all these is, as a rule, mineral superphosphate or else dissolved bones, or the two together, and with these are mixed numerous different manurial substances calculated to supply definite amounts of nitrogen, potash, &c. Such manures, the trade in which corn manure,' is a very large one, are variously known as turnip manure,' grass manure " and the like, and much care is bestowed on their compounding and on their preparation in good condition to allow of their ready distribution over the land. IV. POTASH MANURES 99 66 Bones.-The value and use of these in agriculture has long been known, as also the comparative slowness of their action, which latter induced Liebig to suggest their treatment with sulphuric acid. Natural bones will contain from 45 to 50% of phosphate of lime with 4 to 4% of nitrogen. It is usual to boil bones lightly after collection, in order to remove the adhering particles of flesh and the fat. If steamed under pressure the nitrogenous matter is to a great extent extracted, yielding glue, size, gelatine, &c., and the bones-known then in agriculture as steamed bones "-will contain from 55 to 60% of phosphate of lime with 1 to1% of nitrogen. Bones are also imported from India, and these are of a very hard and dry nature. These, with few exceptions, are natural products from the Bones are principally used for root crops, and to some extent on grass-potash mines of Stassfurt (Prussia). Until the discovery of these land. The more finely they are ground the quicker is their action, deposits, in 1861, the use of potash as a fertilizing constituent but they are a slow-acting manure, which remains some years in the land. Mixed with superphosphate, bone meal forms an excellent was very limited, being confined practically to the employment manure for roots, and obviates the difficulty of using superphos- of wood ashes. At the present time a small quantity of potash phate on land poor in lime. Steamed bones, sometimes ground into salts-principally carbonate of potash-is obtained from sugar flour, are much used in dairy pastures. refinery and other manufacturing processes, but the great bulk of the potash supply comes from the German mines. In these the different natural salts occur in different layers and in conjunction with layers of rock-salt, carbonate of lime and Fish and Meat Guanos. The term "guano," though generally applied to these manures, is wrongly so used, for they are in no sense guano (meaning thereby the droppings of sea birds). They are really fish or meat refuse, being generally the dried fish-offal or the residue XVII. 20 G other minerals, from which they have to be separated out and undergo subsequently a partial purification by re-crystallization. The principal potash salts used in agriculture are—(1) sulphate of potash, which is about 90% pure; (2) kainit, an impure form of sulphate of potash, and containing much common salt and magnesia salts, and giving about 12% of potash (K2O); (3) muriate of potash, which is used to a great extent in agriculture, and contains 75 to 90% of muriate of potash; and (4) potash manure salts, a mixture of different salts and containing from 20 to 30% of potash. Potash is much esteemed in agriculture, more especially on light land (which is frequently deficient in it) and on peaty soils, and for use with root crops and potatoes in particular. For fruit and vegetable growing and for flowers potash manures are in constant request. Clay land, as a rule, is not benefited by their use, these oils containing generally an abundance of potash. Along with basic slag, potash salts have been frequently used for grass on light land with advantage. V. MISCELLANEOUS Manures 66 There are, in addition to the foregoing, certain materials which in a limited sense only can be called manures," but the influences of which are mostly seen in the mechanical and physical improvements which they effect in soil. Such are salt, and also lime in its different forms. Salt.-The action of salt in liberating potash from the soil has been explained. As a manure it is sometimes used along with nitrate of soda as a top-dressing for corn crops, in the belief that it stiffens the straw. For root crops also, and mangels in particular, it is employed; also for cabbage and other vegetables. Lime. The use of this is almost solely to be considered as a soil improvement, and not as that of a manure. Sulphate of lime (gypsum) is, however, occasionally used as a dressing for clover, and also for hops. The fact that superphosphate itself contains a considerable amount of sulphate of lime renders the special application of gypsum unnecessary, as a rule. As compared with natural manures, like farm-yard manure, artificial manures have the disadvantage that they, unlike it, do not improve the physical condition of the soil. Artificial manures have, however, the advantage over farm-yard manure that they can supply in a small compass, and even if used in small quantity, the needed nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, &c., which crops require, and which farm-yard manure has but in small proportion. They, further, present the expensive fertilizing matters in a concentrated form, and by their application save expense in labour. (J. A. V.*) MANUSCRIPT, a term applied to any document written by the human hand (Lat. manû scriptum) with the aid of pen, pencil or other instrument which can be used with cursive facility, as distinguished from an inscription engraved with chisel or graver, worked laboriously. By usage the word has come to be employed in a special sense to indicate a written work of the ancient world or of the middle ages; collections of such "ancient manuscripts being highly prized and being stored for preservation in public libraries. Down to the time of the invention of printing, and until the printed book had driven it out of the field, the manuscript was the vehicle for the conservation and dissemination of literature, and discharged all the functions of the modern book. In the present article a description is given of the development of the ancient manuscript, particularly among the Greeks and Romans, leading on to the medieval manuscripts of Europe, and bringing down the history of the latter to the invention of printing; the history of the printed volume is dealt with in the article Book (q.v.). Materials. The handbooks on palaeography describe in full the different materials which have been employed from remote time to receive writing, and may be referred to for minuter details. To dispose, in the first place, of the harder materials that have been put under requisition, we find metals both referred to by writers and actually represented by surviving examples. Thin leaves of gold or silver were recommended for the inscription of charms in particular. Leaden plates were in common use for incantations; the material was cheap and was supposed to be durable. On such plates were scratched the dirae or solemn devotions of obnoxious persons to the infernal deities; many examples have survived. As an instance of the use of soft substance afterwards hardened may be cited the practice by the Babylonians and Assyrians of writing, or rather of puncturing, their cuneiform characters on clay tablets while moist, which were afterwards dried in the heat of the sun or baked in the oven. Potsherds, or ostraka, were employed for all kinds of temporary purposes. Thousands of them have been found in Egypt inscribed with tax receipts and ephemeral drafts and memoranda, children's dictation lessons, &c. Analogous to the clay documents of western Asia are the tablets coated with wax in vogue among the | Greeks and Romans, offering a surface not to be inscribed with the pen but to be scratched with the sharp pointed stilus. These will be described more fully below. With them we class the wooden boards, generally whitened with a coating of paint or composition and adapted for the pen, which were common in Egypt, and were specially used for educational purposes. Such boards were also employed for official notices in Athens in the 4th century B.C. Of the more pliant, and therefore generally more convenient, substances there were many, such as animal skins and vegetable them: papyrus, parchment or vellum, and paper, the employment growths. Practically we might confine our attention to three of of which, each in turn, as a writing material became almost universal. But there are also others which must be mentioned. In a primitive state of society leaves of plants and trees strong enough for the purpose might be taken as a ready-made material to receive writing. Palm leaves are used for this purpose to the present day in parts of India; and the references in classical authors to leaves as early writing material among the Greeks and Romans cannot be dismissed as entirely fanciful. The bark of trees, and particularly the inner bark of the lime-tree, piλupa, tilia, was employed. The fact that the Latin word liber, bark, eventually meant also a book, would be sufficient proof that that material was once in common literary use, even if it were not referred to by writers. Linen, too, was a writing material among the early Romans, as it was also among the Etruscans, and as it had been to some extent among the Egyptians. Skins of animals, tanned, have doubtless served as a writing material from the very earliest period of the use of letters. The Egyptians occasionally employed this material. Instances of the use of leather in western Asia are recorded by ancient authors, and from Herodotus we learn that the Ionian Greeks applied to the rolls of the later-imported papyrus the title dépa, skins, by which they had designated their writing material of leather. The Jews, also, to the present day hold to the ancient Eastern custom and inscribe the law upon skin rolls. But generally these materials were superseded in the old world by the famous Egyptian writing material manufactured from the papyrus plant, which gradually passed beyond the boundaries of its native land and was imported at a remote period into other countries. Into Greece and into Rome it was introduced at so early a time that practically it was the vehicle for classical literature throughout its course. A description of the manufacture and use of this material will be found under PAPYRUS. Here it need only be noted that papyrus is associated in Greek and Roman literature with the roll form of the ancient manuscript, as will be more fully explained below, and that it was the supersession of this material by parchment or vellum which led to the change of shape to the book form. not a revival of the use of animal skins as followed by the old world. The introduction of the new material, parchment or vellum, was The skins were now not tanned into leather, but were prepared by a new process to provide a material, thin, strong, flexible, and smooth of surface on both faces. This improved process was the secret of the success of the new material in ousting the time-honoured papyrus from its high position. The common story, as told by Pliny, that Eumenes II. of Pergamum (197-158 B.C.), seeking to extend the library of his capital, was opposed by the jealousy of the Ptolemies, who forbade the export of papyrus, hoping thus to check the growth of a rival library, and that he was thus compelled to have recourse to skins as a writing material, at all events points to Pergamum as the chief centre of trade in the material, wepyaμŋý, charta pergamena. The old terms dépa, membranae, applied originally to the older leather, were transferred to the newly improved substance. In describing MSS. written on this material, by common consent the term parchment has in modern times given place to that of vellum, properly applicable only to calfskin, but now generally used in reference to a medieval skin-book of any kind. Parchment is a title now usually reserved for the hard sheepskin or other skin material on which law deeds are engrossed. (See PARCHMENT.) Vellum had a long career as a writing material for the literature of the early centuries of our era and of the middle ages. But in its turn it eventually gave place to paper (q.v.). As early as the 13th century paper, an Asiatic invention, was making its way into Europe and was adopted in the Eastern Empire as a material for Greek literature side by side with vellum. It soon afterwards began to appear in the countries of southern Europe. In the course of the 14th century the use of it became fairly established, and in the middle of the century a number of paper manuscripts were produced along with those on vellum, particularly in Italy. Finally, in the 15th century paper became the common material for the manuscript book. The new paper, however, made no further change in the form of the manuscript. It possessed exactly the same qualities, as a writing material, as vellum: it could be inscribed on both sides; it could be made up into quires and bound in the codex form; and it had the further advantage of being easily manufactured in large quantities, and therefore of being comparatively cheap. The Forms of the Manuscript Book.-In describing the development of the manuscript book in the ancient world, and subsequently in the middle ages, we have to deal with it in two forms. The common form of the book of the ancient world was the roll, composed of one continuous sheet of material and inscribed only on one side. This form had a long career. In Egyptian literature it can be traced back for thousands of years. In Greek literature it may be assumed to have been in vogue from the earliest times; actual examples have survived of the latter part of the 4th and beginning of the 3rd centuries B.C. As to its early use in Latin literature we cannot speak so definitely; but Rome followed the example of Greece in letters, and therefore no doubt also in the material shape of literary productions. Both in Greek and Latin literature the roll lasted down to the early centuries of the Christian era. It was superseded by the codex, the manuscript in book form (in the modern sense of the word book), composed of separate leaves stitched together into quires and made available to receive writing on both sides of the material. This form is still in vogue as the modern printed book, and probably will never be superseded. But the codex in this developed shape was only an evolution from the early waxen tablets of the Greeks and Romans, two or more of which, hinged together, formed the primitive codex which suggested the later form. Therefore it will be necessary to include the description of the tablets with that of the later codex. The Roll. The ordinary terms in use among the Greeks for a book (that is, a roll) were ßißlos (another, form of ßißλos, papyrus) and its diminutive ßißλiov, which included the idea of a written book. The corresponding Latin terms were liber and libellus; volumen was a rolled-up roll. A roll of material | uninscribed was xáprns, charta, or róμos (originally a cutting of papyrus), applicable also to a roll containing a portion or division of a large work which extended to more than one roll. A work contained within the compass of a single roll was 2 μονόβιβλος, or μονόβιβλον. The term τεῦχος seems also to have meant a single roll, but it was also applied at a later time to indicate a work contained in several rolls. The text was written in columns, σeλides, paginae, the width of which seems not to have been prescribed, but which for calligraphic effect were by preference made narrow, sufficient margins being left at head and foot. The average width of the columns in the best extant papyri ranges from two to three-anda-half inches. The written lines were parallel with the length of the roll, so that the columns stood, so to say, with the height of the rolled-up roll, and were disclosed consecutively as the roll was unwound. Ruling with lead to guide the writing is mentioned by writers, but it does not appear that the practice was generally followed. The number of lines in the several columns of extant papyri is not constant, nor is the marginal boundary of the beginnings of the lines, for the accuracy of which a ruled vertical line would have proved useful, ordinarily kept even. No doubt in practice the horizontal fibres of the material were found to afford a sufficient guide for the lines of writing. If the title of the work was to be given, the scribe appears to have written it ordinarily at the end of the text. But something more was needed. To be obliged to unroll a text to the end, in order to ascertain the name of the author, would be the height of inconvenience. Its title was therefore sometimes written at the head of the text. It appears also that at an early period it was inscribed on the outside of the roll, so as to be visible as the roll lay in a chest or on the shelf. But a more general practice was to attach to the top edge of the roll a label or ticket, oiußos, or oírTußos, titulus, index, which hung down if the roll lay on the shelf, or was conveniently read if the roll stood along with others in the ordinary cylindrical roll-box, KLOTη, KIẞwTÓS, cista, capsa. One such label made of papyrus has survived and is in the British Museum. The scribe would not commence his text at the very beginning, nor would he carry it quite down to the end, of the roll. He would leave blank a sufficient length of material at either extremity, where the roll would naturally be most exposed to wear and tear by handling in unrolling and re-rolling; and, further, the extreme vertical edges might each be strengthened by the addition of a strip of papyrus so as to form a double thickness of material. In writing the text of a work, the scribe might choose to make use of separate sheets of papyrus, koλλýμaтa, schedae, and then join them to one another consecutively so as to make up the According to the particulars given by classical authors, the roll; or he might purchase from the stationers a scapus, or ready-roll would be finished off somewhat elaborately; but the details made roll of twenty sheets at most; and if this length were not sufficient, he might add other sheets or scapi, and thus make a roll of indefinite length. But proverbially a great book was a great evil, and, considering the inconvenience of unrolling a long roll, not only for perusal, but, still more so, for occasional reference, the practice of subdividing lengthy works into divisions of convenient size, adapted to the capacity of moderate-sized rolls, must have come into vogue at a very early period. It was the practice to write on one side only of the papyrus; to write on both front and back of a roll would obviously be a clumsy and irritating method. Works intended for the market | were never opisthograph. Of course the blank backs of written rolls which had become obsolete might be turned to account for personal or temporary purposes, as we learn not only from references in classical authors but also from actual examples. The most interesting extant case of an opisthograph papyrus is the copy of Aristotle's Constitution of Athens in the British Museum, which is written on the back of a farmer's accounts, of the end of the 1st century-but only for private use. It being the rule, then, to confine the writing to one side of the material, that is, to the inner surface of the made-up roll, that surface was more carefully prepared and smoothed than the other; and, further, the joints of the several sheets were so well made that they offered no obstacle to the action of the pen. Still further, care was taken that this, the recto surface of the material, should be that in which the shreds of papyrus of which it was composed lay horizontally, so that the pen might move freely along the fibres; the shreds of the verso side, on the other hand, being in vertical position. This point is of some importance, as, in cases where two different handwritings are found on the two sides of a papyrus, it may be usually assumed that the one on the recto surface is the earlier. | described by them must be taken to apply to the more expensive productions of the book trade, corresponding with the fullbound volumes of our days. In practice, a large proportion of working copies and ordinary editions must have been dealt with more simply. Firstly, the roll should be rolled up round a central stick, of wood or bone, called the ỏμpadós, umbilicus, to which the last sheet of the papyrus may or may not have been attached. But as a matter of fact no rolling-sticks have been found in company with extant papyri, and it has therefore been suggested that they were not attached to the material but were rolled in loose, and were therefore liable to drop out. In some instances, as in the rolls found at Herculaneum, a central core of papyrus instead of a stick was thought sufficient. The edges, frontes, of the roll, after it had been rolled up, were shorn and were rubbed smooth with pumice, and they were sometimes coloured. A valuable roll might be protected with a vellum wrapper, paivóλns, paenula, stained with colour; and, further, it might be secured with ornamental thongs. The central stick might also be adorned with knobs or " horns," plain or coloured. This seems to be the natural explanation of the képara, or cornua, mentioned by the ancient writers. Finally, the title-label described above was attached to the completed roll, now ready for the book-market. 量 In the perusal of a work the reader held the roll upright and unrolled it gradually with the right hand; with the left hand he rolled up in the reverse direction what he had read. Thus, when he had finished, the roll had become reversed, the beginning of the text being now in the centre of the roll and the end of it being outside. The roll was "explicitus ad umbilicum," or "ad sua cornua." It had therefore now to be unrolled afresh and to be re-rolled into its normal shape-a troublesome process which the lazy man shirked, and which the careful man accomplished by making the revolutions with his two hands | while he held the revolving material steady under his chin. Although the codex or manuscript in book-form began to make its way in Greek and Roman literature as early as the 1st century of our era, the roll maintained its position as the recognized type of literary document down to the 3rd, and even into the 4th, century, when it was altogether superseded. We shall proceed to describe the codex after giving some account of the waxen, or, to speak more correctly, the waxed, tablet, its precursor in the book-form. The Waxen The ordinary waxen tablet in use among the Greeks and Romans was a small oblong slab of wood, beech, fir, and especially box, the surface of which on one or both sides, with Tablet. the exception of the surrounding margins which were left intact in order to form a frame, was sunk to a slight depth and was therein coated with a thin layer of wax, usually black. The tablet thus presented the appearance of a child's school-slate of the present day. Such tablets were single, double, triple, or of several pieces or leaves. In Greek they were called Tiva‡, πɩvakis, déλTOS, deλATÍOV.: in Latin cera, tabula, tabella, &c. Two or more put together and held together by rings or thongs acting as hinges formed a caudex or coder, literally a stock of wood, which a set of tablets might resemble, and from which they might actually be made by cleaving the wood. A codex of two leaves was called diovρoi, diπтνxa, diptycha; of three, тρinтуxa, triptycha: and so on. triptych appears to have been most generally used. A general term was also libellus. The Tablets served for the ordinary minor affairs of life: for memoranda, literary and other notes and drafts, school exercises, accounts, &c. The writing incised with the stilus could be easily obliterated by smoothing the wax, and the tabula rasa was thus rendered available for a fresh inscription. But tablets were also employed for official purposes, when documents had to be protected from unauthorized scrutiny or from injury. Thus they were the receptacles for wills, conveyances, and other legal transactions; and in such cases they were closed against inspection by being bound round with threads which were covered by the witnesses' seals. Small tablets, codicilli, pugillares, often of more valuable material, such as ivory, served for correspondence among other purposes; very small specimens are mentioned as vitelliani, for the exchange of love-letters. A certain number of Greek waxen tablets have been recovered, chiefly from Egypt, but none of them is very early. They are generally of the 3rd century, and are mostly inscribed with school exercises. The largest and most perfect extant codex is one in the British Museum (Add. MS. 33,270), perhaps of the 3rd century, being made up of nine leaves, measuring nearly 9 by 7 in., and inscribed with documents in shorthand. Of Latin tablets we are fortunate in having a fairly large number of examples. Exclusive of a few isolated specimens, they are the result of two important finds. Twenty-four tablets containing the records of a burial club, A.D. 131-167, were recovered between 1786 and 1855 from some ancient mining works in Dacia. In 1875 as many as 127 tablets, containing deeds connected with sales by auction and payment of taxes, A.D. 15-62, were found in the ruins of Pompeii. These specimens have afforded the means of ascertaining the mechanical arrangement of waxen tablets when adopted for legal instruments among the Romans. Most of them are triptychs, severally cloven from single blocks of wood. Subject to some variations, the triptych was usually arranged as follows. Of the six sides or pages of the codex, pages 1 and 6 (the outside pages) were of plain wood; pages 2, 3, 5 were waxed; and page 4, which had a groove cut across the middle was sometimes of plain wood, sometimes waxed. The authentic deed was inscribed with the stilus on the waxed pages 2 and 3; and the first two leaves were then bound round with three twisted threads which passed down the groove so as to close the deed from inspection. On page 4 the witnesses' names were then inscribed (in ink if the page was plain; with the stilus if waxed), and their seals were impressed in the groove, thus | securing the threads. In addition to the protection afforded to the seals from casual injury by their position in the groove, the third leaf acted as a cover to them. On page 5 an abstract or duplicate of the deed, as required by law, was inscribed. The arrangement of the Dacian tablets differed in this respect, that page 4 was waxed, and that the duplicate copy was begun on that page in the space on the left of the groove, that on the right being reserved for the names of the witnesses. In the case of one of the Pompeian tablets the threads and seals still remain. The survival of the use of tablets to a late time should be noted. St Augustine refers to his tablets, and St Hilary of Arles also mentions their employment for the purpose of correspondence; there is a record of a letter written in tabellâ as late as A.D. 1148. They were very commonly used throughout the middle ages in all the west of Europe. Specimens inscribed with money accounts of the 13th and 14th centuries have survived in France, and similar documents of the 14th and 15th centuries are to be found in several of the municipal archives of Germany. Reference to their use in England occurs in literature, and specimens of the 14th or 15th century are said to have been dug up in Ireland. In Italy their employment is both recorded and proved by actual examples of the 13th and 14th centuries. With the beginning of the 16th century they seem to have practically come to an end, although a few survivals of the custom of writing on wax have lingered to modern times. The Codex. As already stated, the codex, or MS. in book-form, owed its existence to the substitution of vellum for papyrus as the common writing material for Greek and Roman literature. The fact that vellum was a tough material capable of being inscribed on both sides, that writing, particularly if freshly written, could be easily washed off or erased from it, and that the material could thus be made available for second use, no doubt contributed largely to its ready adoption. In Rome in the 1st century B.C. it was used, like the waxen tablets for notes, drafts, memoranda, &c.; and vellum tablets began to take the place of the cerae. References are not wanting in the classical writers to its employment for such temporary purposes. To what extent it was at first pressed into the service of literature and used in the preparation of books for the market must remain uncertain. But in the first three centuries of our era it may be assumed that vellum codices were not numerous. The papyrus roll still held its position as the liber or book of literature. Yet we learn from the poems of Martial that in his day the works of some of the best classical authors were to be had on vellum. From the way in which, in his Apophoreta, he has contrasted as exchangeable gifts certain works written respectively on papyrus and on vellum, it has been argued that vellum at that time was a cheap material, inferior to papyrus, and only used for roughly written copies. Up to a certain point this may be true, but the fact that the earliest great vellum Greek codices of the Bible and of Latin classical authors, dating back to the 4th century, are composed of very finely prepared material would indicate a perfection of manufacture of long standing. But, apart from the references of writers, we have the results of recent excavations in Egypt to enable us to form a more correct judgment on the early history of the vellum codex. There have been found a certain number of inscribed leaves and fragments of vellum of early date which without doubt originally formed part of codices or MSS. in book-form. It is true that they are not numerous, but from the character of the writing certain of them can be individually assigned to the 3rd, to the 2nd, and even to the 1st century. We may then take it for an established fact that the codex form of MS. was gradually thrusting its way into use in the first centuries of our era. The convenience of the codex form for easy reference was also a special recommendation in its favour. There can be little doubt that such compilations as public registers must at once have been drawn up in the new form. The jurists also were quick to adopt it, and the very title "codex " has been attached to great legal compilations, such as those of Theodosius and Justinian. Again, the book-form was favoured by the early Christians. The Bible, the book which before all others became the great work of reference in their hands, could only be consulted with convenience and despatch in the new form. A single codex could hold the contents of a work which formerly must have been distributed through many volumes in roll-form. The term owμátov, which was one of the names given to a codex, was expressive of its capacity. Turning again to discoveries in Egypt, it appears that in the early centuries the codex-form had become so usual among the Christians in that land that even the native material, papyrus, the recognized material for the roll, was now also made up by them into leaved books. The greater number of papyri of the 3rd century containing Christian writings, fragments of the Scriptures, the "Sayings of Our Lord," and the like, are in book-form. On the other hand, the large majority of the non-Christian papyri of the same period keep to the old roll-form. Thus the codex becomes at once identified with the new religion, while the papyrus roll to the last is the chosen vehicle of pagan literature. In the 4th century the struggle between the roll and the codex for supremacy in the literary field was finished, and the victory of the codex was achieved. Henceforward the roll-form remained in use for records and legal documents, and in certain instances for liturgies; and for such purposes it survives to the present day. But so completely was it superseded in literature by the codex that even when papyrus, the material once identified with the roll-form, was used as it sometimes was down to the 6th and 7th centuries and later, it was made up into the leaved codex, not only in Egypt but also in western Europe. In The shape which the codex usually assumed in the early centuries of the middle ages was the broad quarto. The quires or gatherings of which the book was formed generally Quires. consisted, in the earliest examples, of four sheets folded to make eight leaves (Terpás or Terpádiov, quaternio), although occasionally quinterns, or quires of five sheets (ten leaves), were adopted. Sexterns, or quires of six sheets (twelve leaves), came into use at a later period. making up the quires, care was generally taken to lay the sheets of vellum in such a way that hair-side faced hairside, and flesh-side faced flesh-side; so that, when the book was opened, the two pages before the reader had the same appearance, either the yellow tinge of the hair-side, or the fresh whiteness of the flesh-side. In Greek MSS. the arrangement of the sheets was afterwards reduced to a system; the first sheet was laid with the flesh-side downwards, so that that side began the quire; yet in so early an example as the Codex Alexandrinus the first page of a quire is the hair-side. In Latin MSS. also the hair-side appears generally to have formed the first page. When paper came into general use for codices in the 15th century, it was not an uncommon practice to give the paper quires additional strength by an admixture of vellum, a sheet of the latter material forming the outer leaves, and sometimes the middle leaves also, of the quire. The quire mark, or "signature," was usually written at the foot of the last page, but in some early instances (e.g. the Codex Alexandrinus) it appears at the head of the first page of each quire. The numbering of the separate leaves in a quire, in the fashion followed by early printers, came in in the 14th century. Catch-words to connect the quires appear first in the 11th century and are not uncommon in the 12th century. lines are found ruled on both sides of the leaf, as in some parts of tion of In both Greek and Latin literary MSS. of early date the writing runs on continuously without separation of words. This practice however, may be regarded as rather artificial, as in Text withpapyri written in non-literary hands and in Latin out separadeeds also, contemporary with these early literary Words. MSS., there is a tendency to separation. In a text thus continuously written occasional ambiguities necessarily occurred, and then a dot or apostrophe might be inserted between words to aid the reader. Following the system of separation of words which appears in ancient inscriptions, wherein the several words are marked off by single, double, or treble dots or points, the words of the fragmentary poem on the battle of Actium found at Herculaneum are separated by single points, probably to facilitate reading aloud; monosyllables or short prepositions and conjunctions, however, being left unseparated from the words immediately following them-a system which is found in practice at a later time. But such marks of separation are not to be confounded with similar marks of punctuation whereby sentences are marked off and the sense of the text is made clear. Throughout the career of the uncial codices down to the 6th century, continuity of text was maintained. In the 7th century there is some evidence of separation of words, but without system. In early Latin minuscule codices partial separation in an uncertain and hesitating manner went on to the time of the Carolingian reform. In early Irish and English MSS., however, separation is more consistently practised. In the 9th and 10th centuries long words tend to separation, but short words, prepositions and conjunctions, still cling to the following word. It was not till the 11th century that the smaller words at length stood apart, and systematic separation of words was established. In Greek minuscule codices of the 10th century a certain degree of separation takes place; yet a large proportion of words remain linked together, and they are even incorrectly divided. Indeed a correct system of distinct separation of words in Greek texts was never thoroughly established even as late as the 15th century. No exact system was followed in ruling the guiding lines on the pages of the codex. In the case of papyri it was enough to mark with the pencil the vertical marginal lines to bound Ruling. the text, if indeed even this was considered needful (see above); the fibres of the papyrus were a sufficient guide for the lines of writing. On vellum it became necessary to rule lines to keep the writing even. These lines were at first drawn with a blunt point, almost invariably on the hair (or outer) side of the skin, and strongly enough to be in relief on the flesh But while distinction of words was disregarded in early (or inner) side. Marginal lines were drawn to bound the text literary texts, distinction of important pauses in the sense was laterally; but the ruled lines which guided the writing were not recognized from the first. The papyrus of the Persae Paragraphs. infrequently drawn right across the sheet. Each sheet should of Timotheus of Miletus, the oldest MS. of a Greek be ruled separately; but two or more sheets were often laid and classic in existence, of the end of the 4th century B.C., is written ruled together, the lines being drawn with so much force that the in independent paragraphs. This is a natural system, the lower sheets also received the impressions. In rare instances | simplicity of which has caused it to be the system of modern |