Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, first edition - Volume I, A-B.pdf/692

 582 B O O K - K E E P I N G. making books: Plates of lead and copper, the barks The firfc books were in the form of blocks and taof trees, bricks, (tone, and wood, were the firft mate- bles.; but as flexible matter came to be wrote oh, they rials employed to engrave fuch things upon as men found it more convenient to make their books in the ■were willing to have tranfmitted to pofterity, Jofe- form of rolls : Thefe were compofed of feyeral Iheets, phus fpeaks of two columns, the one of ftone, the o- faftened to each other, and rolled- upon- a flick, or ther of brick, on which the children of Seth wrote umbilicus; the whole making a kind of column, or their inventions and aftronomical ’ difeoveries : Por- cylinder, which was to be managed by the umbilicus phyry makes mention of fome pillars, preferved in as a.handle, it being reputed a crime to take hold of Crete, on which the ceremonies praftifed by the Co- the roll itfelf: The outlide of the volume was called rybantes in their facrifices were recorded. Hefiod’s frons ; the ends of the umbilicus, cornua, which were works were originally written upon tables of lead., and ’ ufually carved, and adorned with filver, ivbry, or edepofited in the temple of the Mufes, in Bceotia: The ven gold and precious ftones : The title <rv}.a.Cic, was ten commandments, delivered to Mofes, were written ftruck on the outfide; the whole volume, when exupon ftone; and Solon’s lav/s upon wooden planks. tended, might make a yard and a half wide, and fifty Tables of wood, box, and ivory,’ were common among long. The form Which obtains among us is the the ancients: When of wood, they were frequently fquare, compofed of feparate leaves ; which was alfo. covered with wax, that people might write on them known, though little ufed, by the ancients. • To the form of books belongs alfo the internal -i with more eafe, or blot out what they had written. 1'he leaves of the palm-tree were afterwards ufed in- ceconomy, as the order and arrangements of points and ftead of wooden planks, and the fineft and thinneft. letters into lines and pages, with margins and other part of the bark of fuch trees, as the lime, the aih, appurtenants : This has undergone many varieties ; at the mapple, and the elm ; from hence comes the word firft the letters were only divided into lines, then into words, which, by degrees, were noted with liber, which figniiies the inner bark of the trfees : and feparate as thefe barks were rolled up, in order to be removed accents, and diftributed, by points and flops, into pe with greater eafe, thefe rolls were called volumen, a riods, paragraphs, chapters, and other divifions. In countries, as among the orientals, the lines bevolume; a name afterwards given to the like rolls of fome gan ffom the right and ran leftward ; in others, as paper or parchment. Thus we find books were firft written on ftones, the northern and weftern nations, from left to right; as the Greeks, followed both directions, alterwitnefs the Decalogue given to Mofes : Then on the others, going in the one, and returning in the other, parts of plants, as leaves chiefly of the palm-tree ; the nately boujirophedon : In moft countries, the lines rind and barks, efpecially of the tilia, or phillyrea, called and the Egyptian papyrus. By degrees wax, then run from one fide to the other ; in forhe, partithe Chinefe, from top to bottom. See Comleather, were introduced, efpecially the Ikins of goats cularly and ftieep, of which at length parchment was prepared: position. Then lead came into ufe; alfo linen, filk, horn, and iaftly paper itfelf. BOOK-KEEPING. BOOKKEEPING is an art, teaching how to record and difpofe the accompts of bufmefs, fo as the true ftate of every part; and of the whole, may be eafily and diftihftly known. Though the number and kinds of books ufed in this art be in fome meafure arbitrary, there are three which can never be difpenfed with by thofe whofe trade is complex or extenfive, viz. the IVajle-book. Journal, and Ledger. I. Of the Waste-book. Twi Wajle-book is a regifter, containing.an inventory of a merchant’s effeefts and debts, with a record of all his tranfadions, narrated in a plain, fimple ftyle, and in the. exadt order of time as they fucceed one another.

The Wafte-book opens with the inventory; which confifts of two parts : Firft, the effetts, that is, the money a merchant has by him, the goods he has on hand, his fhare in fhips, houfes, farms, with the debts due to him; the fecond part of the inventory is the debts due by him to others: The difference betwixt which and the effedts, is what merchants call neat Jlock. When a man begins trade, the inventory muft be gathered from a furvey of the particulars that make up his real e.ftate; but muft afterwards be collefted from the balance of his old books, and carried to the new. This inventory is the firft thing narrated in the Wafte-book, as being the fource and fpring whence all fubfequent traniaftions flow. After the inventory is fairly narrated in the Waftebook,.. the tranfa&ions of trade come next to be down jotted;