As has already been said the papyrus manuscripts were ordinarily written in columns at right angles to the length of the roll. These columns were from two inches to three and a half inches in width. They were ordinarily written on one side of the roll only. As the older writing materials were always scarce and expensive, the backs of the rolls were sometimes utilized, but very rarely for the continuation of the matter written on the other side. If writing appears on the back of a roll, except in the rare cases where the handwriting is identical with that on the face, the subject matter is of an entirely different character from the original and may safely be regarded as much younger. The title was ordinarily placed at the end of the book although sometimes it appeared at the beginning or in both places. The title was sometimes written on the outside of the roll but more often was written on a tag which was attached to the end of the roll or to the stick upon which the papyrus was rolled. Very wide margins were left at each end of the roll. The ends of the roll were trimmed, rubbed smooth and sometimes colored. The rolls were sometimes wrapped in cloth and sometimes put in cylindrical cases. Whether or not this was done, the rolls were usually kept in cupboards piled on shelves; hence the usefulness of the tag bearing the title. When the vellum book took the place of the papyrus roll consideration was at once given to the peculiarities of the material. The hair side and the flesh side of the skin are different in color and texture. Care was taken to arrange the sheets in quires in such way that the two pages which were under the eye together should be made on the same side of the skin. The outside page of a Latin codex was ordinarily the skin side. By reversing the fold of the inner sheets of the quire, pages two and three would be the flesh side, four and five the hair side and so on. When paper began to come into use it was at first strengthened by having a covering sheet of vellum for each quire, very much as we use a sheet of cover paper on the outside of a pamphlet. A sheet of vellum was also sometimes inserted in the middle of the quire so that the paper would be stitched between the two vellum sheets. Originally the narrow columns of the papyrus roll were transferred to the vellum page but gradually the lines were lengthened until the page had one column or at most two. For example, the Sinaitic codex of the Bible which dates from the 4th century has four columns to the page. The Vatican codex also dated from the 4th century has three. The Alexandrian codex which dates from the very late 4th or the early 5th has two, while the codex of Beza which dates from the 6th century has but one column to the page.