Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/167

Rh gazine of a curious ancient barn at Calcot in the parish of Newington Bagpath in the county of Gloucester, that has on its porch an inscription noticing its being built in the year 1300. In an end wall of this barn there is a window that plainly exhibits a coetaneous mark, there being so many windows of that pattern still discoverable in churches of the same age. A search will be fruitless in buildings of an earlier age for a window framed after a model resembling that of the Preston Hall barn. The characters on the Calcot barn, both letters and numerals, are also coeval; not so 3, 3, in the Helmdon inscription, with the form of that figure in the twelfth century, and an unequivocal inscription carved on stone in Arabic figures previous to the fifteenth century, I suspect, may be still a desideratum. Mr. North and others have proved that many of the specimens produced will not stand the test; and even Professor Ward allows that some which were considered as numerals were really letters specifying initials or abbreviations of names.

Mr. North, in his letter to the earl of Morton already cited, ventured to foretell that a different account from that suggested in the Philosophical Transactions would hereafter appear, if the original piece of wood remained at Helmdon Parsonage undefaced. Though not apprized of this circumstance, I have attempted to fulfil in part this prediction on a closer view of the delineation and description given by Dr. Wallis, who had seen the mantle-tree; and should it have been preserved a century beyond his time, it is to be wished that it may be re-examined. But if the reasons adduced will warrant my reading of the date, the principal basis on which the hypothesis of a very pristine introduction of Arabic numerals is built must be so much weakened, that it will be extremely difficult to find any substantial proofs to uphold it; none assuredly from