NOT 
Notaries are i little ufed among us, except in mer- 
cantile affairs; though in France they ftill fubfift in their 
, egal capacity. The notaries of the chatelet are called the 
king’s eS and note-keepers. 
y, Public, among us, is a perfon who draws, and 
piel “ee deeds or writings, between merchants, to 
make them authentic in another country. 
Notaries have the drawing, pafling, keeping, iffuing, &c. 
of all deeds, et charter-parties, &c. in the mer- 
cantile world. their books are a proteits, re- 
his office by the arch- 
bifhop of Canterbury, and the appointment is to be regiftered 
and fuberibed a clerk of his majefty for apa in Chan- 
cery. By 4t cap. 7. it is enacte rom a 
after Augult Ip 1801, no perfon fhall t be fworn, admitted, 4 
ved feven 
years as clerk or apprentice, &e. nor av ey oe notarial 
act, without fuch admiffion and enrollment, &c. under a 
penalty of sol. The admiffion of a notary thal be ota a 
3o/. ftamp, and every notarial a& fhall be ona 5s. ftamp 
Notaries, Ecclefiaftical, were officers in the firft a io of 
the church, whofe bufinefs was to colle& and preferve the 
acts of the martyrs 
‘ They are fuppofed to have been firft inftituted by St. 
Clement. Their number was ph = they were difpofed 
in the feven quarters or regions me. 
ope Fabian, judging the (om hand of the notaries too 
obfcure for common ufe, added feven fubdeacons to the 
to re eat at length what the notaries drew in 
ength thefe notaries were lai afide, and ra other 
kinds were eftablifhed in their flead, viz. apofolical ores 
and epifcopal notaries; whofe paGnes lies in {fpiritual and 
beneficiary inftru 
NOTATI 
N, ina 1 general fenfe, implies the reprefent- 
number, quantity, dimenfion, or operation by 
ers. 
Notation, in Arithmetic, is the method of expreffing, by 
means of certain fymbols or numeral charaéters, any pro- 
pofed number or quantity. In the common {cale of nota- 
tion, every number is esas by means of the ten charac- 
ters or digits 0, 1, 2) 3) 4 7, 8, 9, which reprefenta- 
tion is effected by giving ue each digit a local as well as its 
proper numeral value, the invention of which method, fimple 
much honour as any difcovery recorded in 
the hiftory of thele {ciences. Tow om we are indebted for 
dis not oe nor 
ring it as 
di oe we are apt to treat it a a ee ry confequence 
following immediately from the nature of number itfelf. 
That this, however, is a miftake is evident, from the nota- 
tion oF the Greeks and Romans, to whom this method was 
NOT 
unknown: in fa& it does not appear to have been introduced 
into Europe before the latter end of the tenth century, 
entitled, in fome of their works, the * Indian Arithmetic.” 
Wit ard to the ee ene ae digits by which numbers 
are now almoft univerfally ex d, bea feem to be the 
ie forma are not fuch as 
ipsa their se though fome authors, 
who have difcovered more inge 
endeavoured to trace them t 
matiques,’’ a reprefentation of the ae arithmetical 
charaéters, as they have been employed by different early 
writers ; and as thefe may be interefting to many of our 
aes we have given the fame in Plate Notation of the pre- 
en 
In the common, or denary fcale of notation, the value of 
every digit cabo from the right hand towards the left in 
a tenfold propor on; thus 11111 is the fame as 10000 + 
d fo oO on for ee 3 Be diftance 
plicity.- But fince any other number or radix might hav 
been ae inftead of 10, the curious reader will enue 
how it happened that*this in particular fhould have beer 
felected as the almoft univerfal radix by nations (aie a un- 
conneGted and unknown to each other, even in many rude 
nations, ta owed among ft the inhabitants of the iffands 
in the South fea, who have fcarcely any notions of a regular 
en of arithmetic, yet have a method of dividing their 
numbers into periods of tens, and the fame has been ob- 
ferved with regard to the natives of New Holland and fome 
other newly difcovered soiaines 
between nations totally u as giver 
rife to many philofophical fpeculations from the time of 
ough it feems to be now 
ce 
infer, that the prefent divifion of numbers into periods of 
tens had its origin as foon as numbering was firft attempted, 
that is, as foon as men began to affociate with each aiee. 
But it muft not thence be inferred, that the mode of nota- 
eks, who, eel aren, they 
made ufe of the fame divifion, had no idea of our prefent nota- 
tion. Such, h 
moft natural that could have been feleGted, though it was. 
not the beft adapted to arithmetical calculations, ¥2 being 
much better fuited for this purpofe: the advantages of it, 
9 however, 
