P. HISTORY OF ' AATHEMATICAL - School of Mathematics

HINDU-ARABIC NUMERALS 63
94. The Portuguese "cifr~io."-Allied to the distorted Spanish U is
the Portuguese symbol for 1,000, called the czfrCio.' It looks somewhat
like our modern dollar mark, $. But its function in writing numbers
was identical with that of the calderdn. Moreover, we have seen forms
of this Spanish "thousand" which need only to be turned through a
right angle to appear like the Portuguese symbol for 1,000. Changes
of that sort are not unknown. For instance, the Arabic numeral 5
appears upside down in some Spanish books and manuscripts as late
as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
FIG. 28.-Real
4,255 pesos.
estate sale in Mexiw City, 1718. The sum written here is
95. Relative size of numerals in tables.-Andr6 says on this point:
"In certain numerical tables, as those of Schron, all numerals are of
the same height. In certain other tables, as those of Lalande, of Callet,
of Houel, of Dupuis, they have unequal heights: the 7 and 9 are
prolonged downward; 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 extend upward; while 1 and 2
do not reach above nor below the central body of the writing. . . . .
The unequal numerals, by their very inequality, render the long
train of numerals easier to read; numerals of uniform height are less
legible. "2
See the word cijriio in Antonio de Moraes Silva, Dicc. de Lingua Portupesa
(1877); in Vieira, Grande Dicc. Pmtuguez (1873); in Dicc. Corntemp. du Lingua
Portugwsa (1881).
D. AndrB, Des notatium mdhhdiqws (Paris, 1909), p. 9.