Most manuscripts show two =columns= to the page. The Sinaitic, however, has four, while the Vatican has three. Columns vary considerably in width. They may be the width of a few letters only, or of an average hexameter line of sixteen to eighteen syllables or about thirty-six letters. Such a line is called a στίχος, and as the scribe was paid according to the number of στίχοι, we find at the end of several books a note giving the total number of στίχοι contained in them. In carefully written manuscripts, every hundredth, sometimes every fiftieth στίχος is indicated in the margin. These stichometric additions were afterwards adopted for the entire Bible. Their value in many respects will be obvious. As the church increased in wealth and prestige, New Testament manuscripts acquired a more sumptuous form, either from the luxury of the rich or the pious devotion of kings and churches. [Sidenote: Palimpsests.] Parchment, however, grew more and more expensive, and so the practice arose of using an old manuscript a second time. The original writing was erased by means of a sponge or pumice stone or a knife, and the sheets were then employed to receive other matter, or it might even be the same matter over again. And so we have =Codices Rescripti= or =Palimpsesti= as they were called, a term known to Cicero, who says, though of a wax tablet, “quod in palimpsesto, laudo parsimoniam” (_ad Diversos_ vii. 18). Some manuscripts were used as often as three times for distinct works in three different languages _e.g._ Greek, Syriac, and Iberian. Codex I^b is one of these thrice used manuscripts, being written first in Greek and then twice in Syriac. [Sidenote: Punctuation.] Marks of =punctuation= are hardly to be found in the earliest times. It was frequently, therefore, a question with church teachers whether a sentence was to be taken interrogatively or indicatively, or how the sentences were to be divided, as in the case of John i. 3 and 4. In the general absence of punctuation, the appearance of quotation marks in some of the oldest manuscripts, like Codex Vaticanus _e.g._, to indicate citations from the Old Testament, is remarkable. [Sidenote: Size.] The =size= of a manuscript varies from a large folio, which in the case of a parchment codex must have been very expensive, to a small octavo. In regions inhabited by a mixed population we find =bilingual= manuscripts, Greek-Latin, Greek-Coptic, Greek-Armenian, and such like. If the manuscript was designed for use in church, the two languages were written in parallel columns, the Greek frequently occupying the left column or reverse side of the sheet, being the place of honour. In manuscripts intended for use in schools, the translation was written between the lines. Codex Δ is an example of a manuscript with an interlinear version of this sort. [Sidenote: Contents.]