66 
Dr. Hoernle —Antiquities from Central Asia, [Extra No. 1, 
impression, and in most cases it gave no distinct impression at all. 
Traces of the enclosing lines, made by the ridge, may be seen on Plates 
V, VII, XI and XIII. It is obvious that these enclosing lines afford a 
ready means for identifying a block. Sufficient of their traces remain 
to render it nearly certain that there was a separate block for each 
of the eight recensions of the text. 
The blocks used for recensions la and 16 had the same dimensions. 
They were long, narrow slabs of woods, measuring 6| by Iff inches. 
There were no blocks of twice that width bearing two columns of 
type. This is proved by the fact, that when two impressions are 
seen side by side, their edges frequently touch or even overlap one 
another, showing that the impressions were taken separately one after 
the other, and not very carefully. Moreover occasionally when the im¬ 
pressions were taken wider apart, two parallel enclosing lines may be 
seen between the inner margins of the two prints. On the other hand, 
it is not probable that both recensions la and 16 can have been printed 
off the same block. For the blank spaces (for lines 6, 7, 15,16) in 16 are 
quite clean : smudges would have been unavoidable from the old inked 
surface, even if the omitted lines had afterwards been left uninked. 
Moreover, though the surface of the blank spaces is clean, the enclosing 
lines can occasionally be seen continuing on both sides, and thus 
showing that the entire surface of the block had been inked. It follows 
that for recension 16 a separate block must have been used, in which 
the surfaces of the two blank spaces had been counter-sunk in order to 
prevent their being inked. Further it is not probable that the recension 
16 can have been printed by using in combination three smaller blocks 
of type, containing the formulas A, C and E respectively. For (1) the 
width of the blank interval is always exactly the same (f of an inch), 
(2) the enclosing lines right and left run perfectly straight, (3) there is 
never any trace of any top and bottom enclosing lines of the three blocks 
between the lines of type. These three facts (especially in combination) 
seem quite incompatible with the use of three blocks to print one text. 
There were three blocks, one for each of the recensions Ic, Id 
and Ie. They must have measured about If x Iff, 2J x Iff, and If x Iff 
respectively, as may be calculated from the slight traces of the enclosing 
lines discernible in a few places (see Plates VII, XI, XIII). The blocks 
for Ic and le must have been of the same or very nearly the same size. 
The recension Id, ( i.e ., formula C) is printed six times on a page of the 
pothi (see Plate VI), being arranged in two columns of three impres¬ 
sions each. That the page was not printed off two blocks, each containing 
a whole column of type, or off one block containing a double column of 
type, is evident from the fact that the six impressions do not keep in 
