114 WILLIAM WEBB ON THE BEST TESTS FOR OBJECTIVES. 



the Old and New Testament together consist of three million 5G6 

 thousand 480 letters (for the convenience of a stand-point), I say 

 the lastly enumerated test is at the rate of one Bible to the inch 

 and then engrave the next at the rate of another Bible to the inch, 

 and go on decreasing at the rate of a Bible to the inch down to fif- 

 teen Bibles, or, at the rate of fifty-three million four hundred and 

 ninety-seven thousand two hundred letters to the inch ; bnt when 

 it is remembered that the letters are written within two 

 parallel lines, with spaces above and below for long letters, and to 

 enable one line to be distinguishable from another, I most respect- 

 fully submit that, such letters as *' a," '< e," " o," and " u," al- 

 though averaged, with all other letters, with the capitals, and in- 

 cluding spaces, at the 53, 497, 200th of an inch, being actually 

 written within the lines, after allowing for the extra space occu- 

 pied by capitals, the spaces between words, and the space between 

 one line of writing and the next line, it may be taken that the "e" 

 actually occupies only one-fourth of the average, or, the two hun- 

 dred and thirteen million nine hundred and eighty-eight thousand 

 eight hundredth of an inch. 



The measurement does not stop at this point, as there are other 

 steps to be traversed — one, as to the dot to an " i," I say nothing 

 now. As to the " e," it is self-evident that it is not a spot of 

 black of the previously estimated less than 200 millionth of an 

 inch, but composed of a bent and twisted line across, and about the 

 200 millionth of an inch ; therefore, the thickness of the line has 

 to be considered, and, taking that at a lineal fifth of the space, the 

 200 and odd millionth would have to be multiplied by 25 as the 

 square of 5, which would bring the square of the line down to the 

 five thousand three hundred and forty-nine million seven hundred 

 and twenty thousandth of an inch — and do not stop there, for that 

 five thousand millionth is itself loaded in, and consists of abraded 

 black atoms, grated in by the cutting edge of the glass letter, 

 which atoms can be seen in diff'erent aggregations where the line 

 has not been perfectly filled in, and if at the rate of two atoms of 

 black in the square of the line, the five thousand millionth becomes 

 the ten thousand millionth ; if at the rate of twenty atoms of 

 black, the size of the atom is the one hundred thousand millionth 

 of an inch. 



I now come to the most important and, to my mind, the most 



