FINGER NUMERALS. The absence of inexpensive mate rial upon which to write, cheap paper being a recent invention, led most early peoples to represent numbers by positions of the fin gers, as is done by deaf mutes to-day. The use of such symbols has survived until modern times, particularly in international trade in the Orient. In the system inherited from the Greeks and Romans small numbers were usually represented on the left hand, the right hand being used for hundreds.
When Juvenal wrote (Satire X.), "Happy is he indeed who has postponed the hour of his death so long and finally numbers his years upon his right hand," he referred to one who lives to be more than I oo years old. The illustration shows the finger symbolism as it was practiced in the mid dle ages.
The finger numerals are related to the finger computations in use in the middle ages, referred to in various early printed books and still familiar in certain parts of the world. The operation of multiplication was the one in which they played the most important part. The purpose was to avoid the learning of the multiplication table as far as I o X I o. For example, to multiply 8 by 6, turn down 8 — 5 fingers on one hand and 6-5 on the other. There are then 3 turned down and 2 standing on one hand and I turned down and 4 standing on the other. Add the fingers down (3+1 =4) and multiply those standing (2 X 4 = 8), and the result is 4 tens + 8 units, or 48 ; that is, in terms of mathe matics, ab=[(a-5)+(b-5)]Io+(Io—a)(Io—b). Numerous variants of the plan were in use, some having been brought to Europe from the Arab schools. (D. E. S.)