A History of Printing in Colonial Maryland

these cases, the Evans reference is noted and the fact mentioned that no
copies have been located.

Collations of the unique British Museum items have been supplied by
Messrs. Edw. C. Allen and Son, Ltd. and Messrs. B. F. Stevens & Brown,
of London. The transcripts and collations of items in libraries outside of
Maryland have been verified by the librarians of the institutions in which
these items are found.

EXPLANATION OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

Fol. 4to. -8vo. The size notation employed, Fol., 4to, 8vo, etc., indicates the fold of the
sheet as determined by the Bodleian rules formulated for this purpose.

* Asterisk. Where the size notation is preceded by an asterisk, it means that the printer
has used a paper without watermark and turned his paper in such a way as to render
the format of the book difficult of determination. In these cases (almost invariably
a volume of session laws or of "Votes and Proceedings"), the compiler has given the
normal notation of the series to which the book was an annual addition.

( ) Round brackets have been used in the transcripts for interpolated or condensed
information supplied by the book itself, as for example, dates of sessions of Assem-
bly or inclusive annual newspaper dates.

[ ] Square brackets have been used to enclose titles not seen or not described as having
been seen by competent authority; titles taken from newspaper advertisements;
descriptive words or phrases introduced into the transcripts by the compiler; im-
prints or dates not actually present in the book,
Prelimary leaf mean leaves at the beginning or end of the volume, forming part of

Supplementary leaf its contents but not included in the signature sequence. These are
usually found in copies of the "Acts" or of the "Votes and Proceedings" of the As-
sembly, and are not accounted for in the signature sequence of the series, which some-
times continues for several years.

SIGNATURES

The alphabet employed by the colonial printer for signatures was that customarily
used for this purpose by early printers; namely, one of twenty-three letters in which "J"
and "W" are never used, and either "U" or "V" is invariably omitted.

The description A-D⁴ means A, B, C, D, with four leaves to each letter; in like manner
A-D⁸ would mean that each of the four gatherings had eight leaves, and in neither case would
it mean necessarily that the work was in quarto or octavo. The size notation given first in
the collation has been determined by the position of water marks and the direction of chain
lines in accordance with the Bodleian rules.

A signature letter used with an inferior number, as for example A₂, A₃ or A₄, means the
second, third or fourth leaf of the gathering A.

GENERAL

Except in instances where the result has seemed to be of importance, no attempt has
been made to account for missing end leaves or fly leaves. Blank end leaves or fly leaves,
however, have been noted when perfect copies have been found containing them.

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