320 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. V. 



In the accompanying printed form of the above, 1689, the date when 

 the oath was taken is given thus j'"vi°, etc. I also found other 

 examples of this in the Acta P arliamentoruni Caroli /, (the Acts of the 

 Parliament of Charles I.). Here is one act in favour of Dame Margaret 

 Graham : " at Edinburgh the ffirst day of ffebruar the yeir of God 

 Jmvjc ' ; " another on page 65 is given thus : " Band to the gnal 

 (general) of Artellierie. Forasmeikle as the commissioneris of the 

 comoun burdens by this their act of the date the nynteenth of August 

 Jmvic' fourtie twa yeers," etc. From this it would appear that the 

 j is merely meant for the number i. This view appears to me to be 

 confirmed by the dates previously given, viz.: — Mvijri and ninetynine 

 years for 1799, and Mvij-if and seventy four years for 1774. In a com- 

 munication from Bernard Quaritch, bookseller, London, I find that he 

 holds this view. 



What are we to say about the twirl ( .^ ) at the end ? Is it meant 

 as the Edinburgh expert says for c, the initial letter of centum a hundred^ 

 or is it as Dr. Dickson calls it " an unmeaning terminal flourish ? " It 

 would appear from the large majority of cases where this flourish is not 

 associated with c, that probably it was meant to take the place of C, 

 and where it is found coming after C, it may be used, as has been sug- 

 gested, to prevent further addition or the altering of the date. 



In the history of " Biggar and the House of Fleming " there is an 

 inventory of silver w^ork and garments and other things which belonged 

 to Dame Elizabeth Ross, Lady Fleming, and signed by her brother- 

 in-law John Earl of Athol, in 1578, which ends as follows: — "We 

 Johne Erie of Athole, Chancellor of Scotland, etc., Scrivit w^o"" hand 

 in Edinburgh ye XXVIII day of October the zeir of God(jav(C-'^) thre 

 scoir auchtene zeiris, Erll of Atholl." If this is a correct transcription, 

 it will be seen that there is a difference between it and the other dates 

 previously referred to. the j, which should follow a, is wanting and the 

 position of the C is changed. The terminal flourish after the v is also 

 different from the one {\) generally found used, and for these reasonsv 

 I confess that I can suggest no explanation except that a mistake was 

 made in transcribing the date. 



It is interesting to know that a similar mode of expressing dates was 

 used by the French in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thus I 

 find that in the "Judgments et Deliberations du Conseil Souverain de 

 la Nouvelle France," 1675 is given gbic soixante quinze, and 1700 gbiic. 

 In this publication, Monday, February ist, 1700, has gbiic for the last 

 time; in the subsequent dates the modern method is used. The g 



