Page:Chronologies and calendars (IA chronologiescale00macdrich).pdf/90

78     1477

1507

1525

1551

There is no doubt that the invention of printing was opportune, and was most favourable to progress in chronology. It stood ready at the behest of such masters as Scaliger and Gregory, and their efforts in this connection acquired a speedy publicity which, under a merely manuscript mode of promulgation, would have been slow, partial, and not so accurately done. But it was when printing gave us the daily press that it did the chief service to chronology. Every newspaper is headed with the day, month, and year, according to the different eras in vogue in different nations.

. The water-marks in paper—naming the mill and giving the year—are further modern means of preventing the spurious from being palmed off as genuine. And the stamp laws (requiring embossed stamps for deeds) have been of special service for detecting fabricated dates.