BOOKS. 



books first printed within the united king- 

 dom, and reprinted in any other, such 

 books shall be seized and forfeited ; and 

 every person so exposing such books to 

 sale, for every such offence, shall forfeit 

 the sum of ten pounds. The penalties 

 not to extend to books not having been 

 printed for twenty years. 



By the act of union, 40 Geo. III. c. 67, 

 all prohibitions and bounties on the ex- 

 port of articles (the produce and ma- 

 nufacture of either country) to the other 

 shall cease ; and a countervailing duty of 

 two-pence for every pound weight avoir- 

 dupois of books, bound or unbound, and 

 of maps or prints, imported into Great 

 Britain directly from Ireland, or which 

 shall be imported into Ireland from Great 

 Britain, is substituted. 



BOOKS, materials of. Several sorts of 

 materials were used formerly in making 

 books : plates of lead and copper, the 

 bark of trees, bricks, stone, and wood, 

 were the first materials employed to en- 

 grave such things upon, as men were 

 willing to have transmitted to posterity. 

 Josephus speaks of two columns, the one 

 of stone, the other of brick, on which the 

 children of Seth wrote their inventions 

 and astronomical discoveries : Porphyry 

 makes mention of some pillars, preserved 

 in Crete, on which the ceremonies prac- 

 tised by the Corybantes in their sacrifices 

 were recorded : Hesiod's works were 

 originally written upon tables of lead, 

 and deposited in the temple of the Mu- 

 ses, in BcEotia ; the ten commandments, 

 delivered to Moses, were written upon 

 stone; and Solon's laws upon wooden 

 planks. Tables of wood, box, and ivory, 

 were common among 1 the ancients: when 

 of wood, they were frequently covered 

 with wax, that people might write on 

 them with more ease, or blot out what 

 they had written The leaves of the 

 palm-tree were afterwards used instead 

 of wooden planks, and the finest and thin- 

 nest part of the bark of such trees, as the 

 lime, the ash, the maple, and the elm; 

 from hence comes the word liber, which 

 signifies the inner bark of the trees; and 

 as these barks were rolled up, in order to 

 be removed with greater ease, these rolls 

 were called volumen, a volume ; a name 

 after wards given to the like rolls of paper 

 or parchmeir 



Thus we find books were first written 

 on stones, witiv-ss the decalogue given to 

 Moses : then on the p-u-ts of plants, as 

 leaves, chiefly of the p;din tree ; the rind 

 and bark, especially of the tilia, or phi- 

 lyrea, and the Egyptian papyrus. By de- 



grees, wax, then leather, were introduced, 

 especially the skins of goats and sheep, 

 of which, at length, parchment was pre- 

 pared : then lead came into use; also 

 linen, silk, horn, and lastly, paper itself. 



BOOKS, form of. The first books were 

 in the form of blocks and tables : but as 

 flexible matter came to be wrote on, they 

 found it more, convenient to make their 

 books in the form of rolls: these were 

 composed of several sheets fastened to 

 each other, and rolled upon a stick, or 

 umbilicus; the whole making a kind of 

 column, or cylinder, which was to be ma- 

 naged by the umbilicus as a handle, it 

 being reputed a crime to take hold of the 

 roll itself: the outside of the volume was 

 called frons ; the ends of the umbilicus, 

 cormia, horns, which were usually carved, 

 and adorned with silver, ivory, or even 

 gold and precious stones ; the title <rvA- 

 PueS'fSK was struck on the outside ; the 

 whole volume, when extended, .might 

 make a yard and a half wile, and fifty- 

 long. The form which obtains among us 

 is the square, composed of separate 

 leaves; which was also known, though 

 little used, by the ancients. 



BOOKS, in a mercantile sense, or BOOK- 

 keeping, the several registers wherein 

 merchants and other dealers keep their 

 accounts. 



A merchant's books should exhibit the 

 true state of his affairs. They should 

 shew the particular success of each trans- 

 action, as well as the general result of 'he 

 whole ; and should be so arranged, as to 

 afford correct and ready information upon 

 every subject for which they may be con- 

 sulted. 



Merchant's books are kept either by 

 single, or according to the method of 

 double entry. They who keep them in 

 the former method have occasion for 

 few books, as a journal, or day-book ; 

 and a ledger, or post-book; the former, 

 to write all the articles, following each 

 other as they occur in the course 1 of their 

 business ; and the other to draw out the 

 accounts of all the debtors and creditors 

 on the journal This method is only pro- 

 per for retail dealers, or at least for tra- 

 ders who have but very lit'ie business: 

 but as for wholesale dealers, and great 

 merchants, who keep their boks accord- 

 ing to the double entry, or I'aliai: me- 

 thod, as is now inosi commonly .I".!. ; 

 business requires several other bo<;: 

 useful new of which will be seen from 

 what follows. 



The most c<msi<lei'i<ijl<- nooks, accord- 

 ing to the method of double entry, are, 



