VOL. XXXIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 37 



from the bottom, which makes it 149O, before which time the 4 had long re- 

 ceived that shape. 



As to the date from Widgel-Hall, which gave occasion to this inquiry, it 

 seems plainly intended to express the year 1000, and no more, by the Roman 

 ^ in the escutcheon on the right side. For the characters in the other 

 escutcheon cannot, Mr. Ward thinks, stand for figures, but must be the initial 

 letters of two names I. G. as W. R. in the Helmdon date ; and were very pro- 

 bably designed in both to denote the persons who erected those buildings. The 

 omission of a character in the place of hundreds, is still an argument, that 

 these last two were not made for figures. But what seems to put the matter 

 past all doubt, is the want of evidence that the figure 6 had received that form 

 till some ages afterward : and when it was introduced, the upper part was not 

 at first made so erect, as it is here, but carried in a small arch just over the top 

 of the circle. On the other hand, what looks here like the modern 6, was at 

 that time the usual form of the capital G. This Mr. Ward found fully con- 

 firmed by a large collection of original grants, made by our ancient kings and 

 others, and preserved in the Cottonian Library, (Augustus II.) On consulting 

 these for half a century at least, both before and after the year IO16, the g is 

 so written in a great number of them. For these reasons therefore he makes 

 no question, but that character was designed for a g, and not a 6. And it is 

 plain from other circumstances in Mr. Gulston's letter, that the building might 

 very probably be as ancient as the year 1000; which renders this relic of it, 

 considering how firm and sound it still is, a remarkable curiosity. 



The use which may be made of these observations, is this : that so far as yet 

 appears, any coin, inscription, or manuscript, with a supposed date before the 

 13th century, expressed in Arabian figures, may be justly suspected either not 

 to be genuine, or not truly read ; unless its antiquity be certain, from other 

 clear and undoubted circumstances, and the date will bear no other reading ; 

 and, if it be a copy, that it has been taken with exactness. 



Some Considerations on the Antiquity and Use of the Indian Characters or 

 Figures. By Mr. John Cope. N° 439, p. 131. 



The ingenious invention of figures by the sagacious Indians, is of such vast 

 importance in numbering, that it can never be too much admired, though now 

 their use is become so familar among us, that very few consider what a loss the 

 want of them would be to people of every station in life : for, to consider only, 

 that such a number as not long before the conquest would take up a good 

 arithmetician whole days to count by the literal characters, is now by the help 



