. The book, its history and development. tick in the scratches. This form of book rests by itself. Apparently it has neveraltered materially, neither hasit in any way affected the pro-duction of the book as we knowit. The palm leaves are brittle,they are troublesome to turn Fig. U.—Oriental palm-leafover, and are likely to split and break where the cord touches them. But the leavesare frequently made of stronger materials than palm leaf,some of them being of gold, silver, or gilded copj)er,and in these cases the lettering is engraved or are written on plates of ivory, the letter
. The book, its history and development. tick in the scratches. This form of book rests by itself. Apparently it has neveraltered materially, neither hasit in any way affected the pro-duction of the book as we knowit. The palm leaves are brittle,they are troublesome to turn Fig. U.—Oriental palm-leafover, and are likely to split and break where the cord touches them. But the leavesare frequently made of stronger materials than palm leaf,some of them being of gold, silver, or gilded copj)er,and in these cases the lettering is engraved or are written on plates of ivory, the letters beinggilded, others again on plates of lacquer with letters inlaidwith mother-of-pearl; indeed, the variety is large. The leaves are always enclosed between two covers ofstronger make hut of the same shape, and these covers areoften very elaborately ornamented. Some of them haveexquisite carved work and inlaid work and others arepainted. In the case of Indian examples they are oftenmessed over with red stains. When this is found the. u; THE BOOK: ITS HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT. manuscript has belonged to some shrine, and worshippershave daubed it with rice and red paint as a sort of peaceoffering. The strings with which the leaves are 1>oundtogether are also sometimes handsomely ornamented. Ancient rock inscriptions, tallies, quipus and wampumsare all more or less ideographic, and among trade signsthere are still many ideographs in common use, some ofthem of considerable antiquity. There are the three goldenballs of the pawnbroker, which mean that money can beborrowed there. They are derived from the coat of arms ofthe Medici of Lombard}^ The Lomliards were mediaevalbankers and money lenders, and for their badge they tookthree of the golden balls, or pills, out of the Medici coat. These balls varied in number and colour, they were some-times red, and sometimes blue, and three blue balls upon awhite ground was one of the mediaeval signs used by moneylenders, but the three go
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubj, booksubjectbookbinding
