Helmdon Mantle Tree Infcription, &c. 157 peats to have efcaped your memory. The warden, Dr. Berdmore, upon my application, received me with great politenefs ; he told me that as for the burfary accounts, thofe of an early date were in Roman numerals, but that I mould fee an old volume of the col- lege regifter, at the top of every page of which the date of the year appears in Arabic numerals; the earlieft 1482: " The old burfary accounts of All Souls begin 1446, but the Roman numerals are ufed till the beginning of the prefent cen- tury, when figures are totally excluded, in the feparate charges of each article, and retained only in cafting up the fum at the bottom of the page. " The court-rolls preferved in the archives of the fame college are written with Roman, but many of them indorfed with the date- of the year in Arabic numerals ; the earlieft thus marked was -A dni 8 ufque ad ." i, e. 1448 to 1449, I queftion, however, whether they were fo marked before 1470, as till about that time the rolls appear to have been thus indorfed by the fame hand. " Profeffor Wallis, in his affertion that' Arabic numerals appear to have been generally ufed for more than four centuries, does no$ appear to have judged from the burfary or other accounts of Exe- ter College, as is evident from the regifters and books of accounts of that Society, which the re&or freely permitted me to mfpecl. The pecuniary charges and dtfcharges in the old burfar's books are made in Roman numerals, which were not changed for the now vulgar figures till within the remembrance of the prefent warden about thirty years ago. In the rector's accounts of the fame col- lege, the Roman were altered for the numerals now /??,/ on All Saints Day, Nov. i, 1603; the vulgar figures feem to have been 4 ufed
