receipts, are generally rolls, folded
backwards and forwards upon themselves like the sides of a concertina.
At Pompeii in 1875 several diptychs were found, the wooden leaves
hollowed on the inner sides, filled with blackened wax, and hinged
together at the back with leather thongs. Writings were found scratched
on the wax, one of them being a record of a payment to Umbricia Januaria
in A.D. 55. This is the earliest known Latin manuscript. The diptychs
are the prototypes of the modern book. From about the 1st to the 6th
century, ornamental diptychs were made of carved ivory, and presented to
great personages by the Roman consuls.

[Illustration: Plate.

FIG. 1.--WINCHESTER DOMESDAY BOOK OF THE 12TH CENTURY.

Dark brown morocco, blind stamped.

FIG. 2.--ST. CUTHBERT'S GOSPELS.

Red leather with repousse design, probably the work of the 7th or
8th century. The fine lines are impressed by hand, and painted blue
and yellow.

FIG. 4.--BINDING MADE FOR JAMES I.

Dark blue morocco, gold tooled. The red in the coat-of-arms inlaid
with red morocco.

FIG. 3.--BINDING MADE FOR JEAN GROLIER.

Pale brown morocco, gold tooled.

FIG. 5.--COMMON PRAYER (LONDON, 1678).

Smooth red morocco, gold tooled with black fillets. Bound by Samuel
Mearne.

FIG. 6.--LE LIVRE DES STATUTS ET ORDONNANCES DE L'ORDRE DU BENVIST
SAINCT ESPRIT (PARIS, 1578).

Brown morocco, gold tooled, arms of Henry III., King of France.
Bound by Nicholas Eve.

FIG. 7.--CATALOGUE OF THE PICTURES AT HAGLEY HALL.

Red niger morocco, gold tooled. Bound by Douglas Cockerell.

FIG. 8.-WALTON'S COMPLEAT ANGLER (1772).

Golden brown morocco, gold tooled. Bound by Miss E.M. MacColl.]

Rolls of papyrus, vellum or paper were written upon in three ways, (1)
In short lines, at right angles to the length of the roll. (2) In long
lines each the entire length of the roll. (3) In short lines parallel to
the length of the roll, each column or page of writing having a space
left on each side of it. Rolls written in the first of these ways were
simply rolled up and kept in cylinders of like shape, sometimes several
together, with a title tag at the end of each, in a box called a
scrinium. In the case of the second form, the most obvious instances of
which are to be found in the Buddhist prayer-wheels, the rolls were and
are kept in circular boxes with handles through the centres so that they
can r