The corners of the angles being cut off by transcribers for despatch, these figures were gradually brought into what are now called numerical letters. When the corners of ⊏Ⅰ⊐ were made round, it stood thus, ⅭⅠↃ, which is so near the Gothic ന that it soon deviated into that character; so that Ⅰ⊐ having the corners made round stood thus, ⅠↃ, and then easily deviated into D. ⊏ also became a plain C by the same means: the single rectangle, which denoted fifty, was, without any alteration, a capital L; the double acute angle was an X; the single acute angle, a V; and a plain single stroke, the letter I. And thus these seven letters, M, D, C, L, X, V, I, became numerals. As a further proof of this assertion, let it be considered that ⅭⅠↃ is still used for one thousand, and ⅠↃ for five hundred, instead of M and D; and this mark, ന, is sometimes used to denote one thousand, which may easily be derived from this figure, ⊏Ⅰ⊐, but cannot be deviations from, or corruptions of, the Roman letter M. The Romans also expressed any number of thousands by a line drawn over any numeral less than one thousand: thus, V̅ denotes five thousand, L̅X̅ sixty thousand; so, likewise, M̅ is one million, M̅M̅ two millions, &c. Upon the discovery of printing, and before capitals were invented, small letters served for numerals; not only when Gothic characters were in vogue, but when Roman had become the prevailing character. Thus, in early times, ~i~ ~b~ ~x~ ~l~ ~c~ ~d~ ~m~ were, and in Roman type are still, of the same signification as capitals when used as numerals. Though the capital J is not a numeral letter, yet the lower-case ~j~ is as often and as significantly used as the vowel ~i~, especially where the former is employed as a closing letter, in ~ij~ ~iij~ ~bj~ ~bij~ ~biij~ ~dcij~, &c. In Roman lower-case numerals, the j is not regarded, but the i stands for figure 1 wherever it is used numerically. During the existence of the French Republic, books were dated in France from the first year of the Republic: thus An. XII. (1803,) or twelve years from 1792. ARITHMETICAL FIGURES. The arithmetical or Arabic numerals are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Properly they should be styled Hindu or Indian numerals; for the Arabs borrowed them, along with the decimal system of notation, from the Hindus. They were probably first introduced from the East into Italy about 1202; yet they did not come into general use before the invention of printing. Accounts were kept in Roman numerals up to the sixteenth century. Figures are usually made one en thick; but of late a broader figure is cast for newspaper use, which is two-thirds or six-sevenths of an em in width. OLD STYLE FIGURES.