On an old Method of marking Dates on MS. Books. 47 



which he said constituted its chief worth, and would stamp it 

 with a greater or less value in proportion to its antiquity. He 

 had shown it to different clergymen, who severally examined its 

 contents, without being able to affix any period, or observing any 

 mark, or character, by which they could trace the date of its ori-r 

 gin, although the year was very pointedly dated at the close of 

 t!ie calendar, but in a manner somewhat characteristic of the age 

 of the church to which it belonged, when every thing was con- 

 cealed under some mystic symbol, or almost unintelligible hiero- 

 glyphical hyperbole. • 



As the date of this little volume escaped the scrutinizing obser- 

 vation of these learned gentlemen, the same mode of dating may 

 have been adopted in other writings of the same period, and 

 perhaps of much greater imj)ortance, and which may also have 

 escaped the researcher's notice, when its identity might have 

 been of some consequence. Perhaps the decvphering of this may 

 give' a key, and lead to others of more interesting import. On 

 this ground, may I trouble you to give it a few minutes' consi- 

 deration, and if you judge it at all likely to be useful or amusing, 

 have the goodness to give it a corner in your next number of the 

 Philosophical Magazine ? 



The calendar was written in the regular style, the manuscript 

 of which had been finished on the first day of the second month, 

 one thousand four hundred and fifty-six, veiled under the follow- 

 ing mystical dotting, made at the close of the last month in the 

 calendar. 



To render it the more obscure, there was neither point nor 

 comma, to divide the numbers, which would have made it some- 

 what plainer, thus : 



The single dot is thejirst day, the two horizontal dots mark 

 two, for the second month. The three dropping or perpendicular 

 dots, in imitation of the old I are only a numerical one. The 

 (\UAlrefour, the cinq //ye, and the six by being laid horizontally 

 <icnotes the currency of its numbers, and is to be counted 



1 t 3 



\ \ \ i.e. six. Had the six dots been placed thus • • they 



would have only counted tuo: had the date been fifty-three, the 



three must have stood thus • • • or thus . . . , four would 



• • • have 



