502 
NUMERAL FIGURES. 
not permanently fixed there till after the year 1531. The Russians 
were strangers to them before Peter the Great had finished his travels 
in the beginning of the last century. 
The origin of these useful characters with the Indians and Arabians 
is attributed to their great skill in the arts of astronomy and arithme- 
tic, which required more convenient characters than alphabetic let- 
ters, for the expressing of nunibers. 
Before the introduction into Europe of these Arabic numerals, they 
used alphabetical characters, or Roman numerals. Thc'learned au- 
thors of the Nouveau Traits Diplomatique, the most valuable work on 
every thing concerning the arts and progress of w'riting, have given 
some curious notices on the origin of the Roman numerals. They 
say, that originally men counted by their fingers : thus, to mark the 
first four numbers they used a I, which naturally represents them ; 
to make the fifth they chose a V, which is made out by bending 
inwards the three middle fingers, and stretching out only the thumb 
and the little finger ; and for the tenth they used an X, which is a 
double V, one placed topsyturvy under the other. From this the 
progression of these numbers is always from one to five, and from 
five to ten. The hundred was signified by the capital letter of the 
word in Latin C — centum. The other letters D for 500, and M for 
1000, were afterwards added. They subsequently abbreviated their 
characters by placing one of these figures before another ; and the 
figure of less value before a higher number, denotes that so much 
may be deducted from the greater number; for instance IV signifies 
five less one, that is, four; IX, ten less one, that is, nine ; but these 
abbreviations are not found amongst the most ancient monuments. 
These numerical letters are still continued by us, in recording accounts 
in our exchequer.. 
The men counted originally by their fingers, is no improbable sup- 
position ; it is still naturally practised by the vulgar of the most 
enlightened nations. In more uncivilized states, small stones have 
been used, and the etymologists derive the w'ords calculate and calcu- 
lation from calculus, which is the Latin term for a pebble-stone, and 
by which they denominate their counters used for arithmetical 
computations. 
Professor Ward, in a learned dissertation on this subject in the Phi- 
losophical Transactions, concludes, that it is easier to falsify the Ara- 
bic ciphers that the Roman alphabetic numerals : when 1375 is 
dated in Arabic ciphers, if the 3 is only changed, three centuries are 
taken away ; if the 3 is made into a 9 and take away the 1, four hun- 
dred years are added. Such accidents have assuredly produced 
much confusion among our ancient manuscripts, and still do in our 
printed books ; which is the reason that Dr. Robinson in his his- 
tories, has ahvays preferred writing his dates in words, rather than 
confide them to the care of a negligent printer. Gibbon observes, 
that some remarkable mistakes have happened by the word mil, in 
manuscripts, which is an abbrevation for soldiers, or thousands ; 
and to this blunder he attributes the incredible number of mar- 
tyrdoms, which cannot otherwise be accounted for by historical 
records. 
