The early registers are contained in three parchment books. The first measures 15 inches by 7, and has a thickness of 1 inch. It was re-bound recently in white vellum, and an expert has endeavoured to restore the almost vanished characters of the first page. The earliest legible entries are for January 1570-71. The sheets may have once got loose and some lost, for there is a complete gap between the years 1591-98, and another between 1604-11. There are minor gaps besides, which, perhaps, may be explained by the system of register keeping that obtained in these parts. A smaller book for entries was kept, called a pocket-register, in which the minister (or the clerk) noted down the ceremonies as they occurred; and these were copied from time to time into the larger book. It was a system that, in the hands of careless officials, produced nothing short of disaster, as far as parochial history is considered. The re-entry, long over-due, had often not been made, before the pocket-register was mis-placed or lost. In times of stress, like those of the plague-years, the church officials seem to have become paralized, and ceased to cope for months at a time with the registration of the dead. For instance, in the deadly year 1577, February, April, May and July are blank; eight burials are then entered for August, and none for the rest of the year. Again, next year, eight deaths are recorded for July, nine for September, and twelve for November, while the intervening and succeeding months are blank. This state of things continues through the years of oft-returning plague that followed, and through the long rectorate of John Wilson, diversified by the occasional loss of a page or a mysterious skip, _e.g._, in marriages there is a gap between the years 1583-4 and 1611--more than 27 years.[194] [194] The following list of omissions in the earliest Grasmere Church Register, 1570-1687, has been kindly supplied by Miss H. J. H. Sumner.--ED. "No Marriages between ffeb. 1583-4 and June 1611; no Burials between July 1588 and May 1598; no Christenings between Dec. 1591 and ffeb. 1600-1; no Burials between May 1604 and Apr. 1611; no Christenings between March 1603-4 and Apr. 1611; no Christenings between ffeb. 1625-8 and June 1627; no Marriages between July 1625 and May 1627; no Burials between ffeb. 1625-6 and May 1627."