BOO 
, BONTIA, in botany, so called from Ja- 
cobus Bontius, a genus of the Didynamia 
Angiospennia class and order. Natural 
order of Personate. Essential character : 
calyx five-parted ; corol two lipped ; lower 
lip three-parted, revolute ; drupe ovate, 
one-seeded, with the end oblique. There 
is but one species viz. B. daphnoides, the 
leaves of which are thick and rather stiff, 
very smooth and green on both sides ; co- 
rolla yellowish, with a line of dusky purple 
along the middle of the lower lip ; birds 
grow fat upon the fruits, but unless the 
entrails are taken out as soon as the bird 
is killed, it becomes too bitter to be eaten. 
BOOK, liber, the composition of a man 
of wit and learning, designed to communi- 
cate somewhat he has invented, expe- 
rienced, or collected, to the public, and 
thence to posterity ; being withal of a com- 
petent length to make a volume. 
In this sense, a book is distinguished 
from a pamphlet, by its greater length; 
and from a tome or volume, by its contain- 
ing the whole writing. According to the 
aneients, a book differed from an epistle, 
not only in bulk, but in that the latter was 
folded, and the former rolled up ; not but 
that there are divers ancient books now 
extant, under the names of epistles. 
By 8 Anne, c. 19, the author of any 
book, and his assigns, shall have the sole li- 
berty of printing and reprinting the same 
for fourteen years, to commence from the 
day of the first publication thereof, and 
no longer ; except that if the author be 
living, at the expiration of the said term, 
the sole copyright shall return to him for 
other fourteen years : and if any other per- 
son shall print, or import, or shall sell or 
expose it to sale, he shall forfeit the same, 
and also one penny for every sheet thereof, 
found in his possession. But this shall not 
expose any person to the said forfeitures, 
unless the title thereof shall be entered in 
the register book of the Company of Sta- 
tioners. 
By statute eleven copies of each 
book, on the best paper shall, before pub- 
lication, be delivered to the warehouse- 
keeper of the Company of Stationers, for 
the use of the Royal Library, the libraries 
of the two universities in England, the four 
universities in Scotland, the library of Sion 
College, the library belonging to the Col- 
lege of Advocates in Edinburgh, the library 
of Trinity College, Dublin, and the King’s 
Inn, Dublin, on pain of forfeiting the value 
(thereof, and also five pounds. 
BOO 
By Stat. 34 Geo. III. c. 20, and 41 Geo. 
III. c. 107, persons importing for sale books 
first printed within the united kingdom, 
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 export 
of articles (the produce and manufacture 
of either country) to the other shall cease ; 
and a countervailing duty of two-pence for 
every pound weight avoirdupois 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 engrave 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 dis- 
coveries : Porphyry makes mention of some 
pillars, preserved in Crete, on which the 
ceremonies, practised 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 
Muses, in Bmotia : 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 the ancients : when 
of wood, they were frequently covered with 
wax, that people might write on them with 
move ease, or blot, out what they had writ- 
ten. The leaves of the palm-tree were 
afterwards used instead of wooden planks, 
and the finest and thinnest part of the bark 
of such trees, as the lime, the ash, the ma- 
ple, 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 vo- 
lumen, a volume ; a name afterwards given 
to the like rolls of paper or parchment. 
Thus we find books were first written on 
stones, witness the decalogue given to 
Moses: then on the parts of plants, as 
leaves chiefly of the palm tree ; the rind 
