Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/760

* NOTARY PUBLIC. 648 NOTATION. powers which they e.xercise generallj' to-day. In the United States, notaries are apiiointed by the Governors of tlic States; and the authority of a notary to act, therefore, does not extend Ix-yond the limits of the particiihvr territory in a State for which he is ai)i)ointed. This territory is usually a county, ami he cannot perform any acts in another county unless he complies with certain prescribed formalities, such as filing a certificate and paying an additional fee. In many States a notary may thus extend his otlicial pow- ers to all the counties of his State, but he cannot e.ercise his powers except for the county in which he is personally present at any given lime. In general, any nale citizen is eligible to ap- pointment as a notary. In most States, in order to qualify, a notary must take an oath of office, and in some he nuist give a bcmd to secure the faithful performance of the duties of his olHce ; and a breach of his ofiicial duties is punished criminally. A notary's seal must be atlixed to many legal instruments authenticated before him. The statutes of the dill'erent States vary as to the necessity of a notarial seal. As notaries are State oflieors, their acts in mat- ters in which the Kederal Government is in- volved are not valid except in cases where their authority is specially recognized by the acts of Congress. These Federal statutes provide that a notary may administer all oaths and take all acknowledgments which a justice of the peace may do, and the authority of notaries to take depositions, afTidavits, etc., for use in the United States courts is also expressly authorized. The notarial seal must be allixed to all documents in- tended to be used in the courts or any de[>artnient of the Federal (iovcrnment. The United States statutes in this regard arc very strictly construed. The general powers of a notary as a State of- ficer are as follows: to take acknowledgment of legal instruments, such as deeds, mortgagi'-, bills of sale, etc.: to take affidavits; to take depositions (q.v. ) ; to protest connnercial ])aper: and, in 'some States, to exercise the powers of a justice of the peace. A notary may be disqualified to act by reason of his financial interest in a matter brought be- fore him. Thus where a notary is a grantee in a deed, he cannot take the acknowledgment of the grantor, or person conveying the (jroperty. Relationship to one of the parties to a <lerd or other legal instrument will not ordinarily dis- qualify a notary from taking the acknowledg- ment of that party, as it is a ministerial act ; but where the notary is conunissioned to take depositions, it is considered more in the nature of a judicial ad. and if he is a near relative to one of the parties to the suit, in most jurisdic- tions he is (lisqualified for that reason. The fees of notaries are fixed by statute in each State, and generally it is a misdemeanor for a notary to demand and receive more than the statutory fee for an act. T!y statute in most jurisdictions cer- tain other officials, stich as judges, justices of the peace, mayors of cities, etc., are vested with no- tarial powers. See Evidexce; Acknowi.koo- MKVT: .l 1 ID.WIT. NOTATION (T.at. nolalio. designation from nnlrirr, to mark, from tiotii, ?nark), Tn arith- metic, a term applied to a system of designating numbers by figures, or notw, as they were often called in the Middle Ages. The chief number notations of the early races, before the perfecting f of the position system, conform to one of three ' systems, the repeating, the alphabetic, and the ! initial-letter systems, altbough these are not mutually exclusive. l!y the repeating system is meant the plan of repeating a chosen .symbol, especially for 1, 10, 100 — on the additive prin- ciple, so as to represent other numbers twice, or three or more times as great. Thus, in the Egjptian system, the symbol f stands for 10, and the combination rPr stands for 30. By the alphabetic system is meant the plan of rep- resenting numbers by letters in alphabetic order. . d by the initial-letter system is nu'ant the plan of representing numbers by the initial letters of the corresponding language forms. These ten- dencies are exhibited in the following tables: REPEATING SYSTEMS. Egyptian |, f), Q/, Babylonian V -J y^_ Early Greek I,' A, H, M, Early Roman 1, X, Q. (Jj, Late" Roman I, X, V, M, .VLl'IIABETIC .^.Nl> IXITI.A.L-LETTER SYSTEMS. Hebrew J^, ^, Jj, -,, nindu —, =:, =, and the initial letters. Late Greek o, p, y, The Hebrew system was used by Hebrew writers as late as the twelfth century, in connec- tion with zero, after contact with the Arabic system. Among the Egyptians numbers were written numing from right to left in the hieratic writ- ing, with varying direction in the hieroglyphics. In the latter the numbers were either written out in words or represented by symbols for each unit, repeated as often as necessary. In the hieratic symbols the figure for the unit of higher order stands to the right of the one of lower order. The Phoenician system -cnntained twenty- two characters, derived from the symbols of the Egyptians. The Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions proceed from left to right, which must be looked upon as exceptional in a Semitic language. The units of higher order stand on the left of those of lower order. The symlxds uscil in writing are chiefly a horizontal wedge, a vertical wedge, and a condiination of the two at an angle. The symbols were written beside one another, or, for ease of readinir and to save space, over one another. The symbols for 1. 4, 10, 100, 14, 400, respectively, are as follows: Y V -< Y>- For nundn'rs exceeding 100 there wa- aKo used, besliies the mere juxtapiisition, ,-i multiplicative principle; the symbol representing the nunibi'r of hiuidrcds was placed at the left of the syndml for hundreds, as in the case of 400, already shown. The Babylonians jirobably had no symbol for zero. The oldest Greek numerals (aside from the written words) were, in general, the initial let- ters of the fundamental minibers. I for 1, IT for ."i (r/irrt). A for 10 (5^ko), and these were repeated as often as nccess;irv. These numerals are descril»d by the Byzjintine grammarian Herodianus {c.200 a.d.), and hence are spoken of