The pages are of the size of an ordinary duodecimo, but contain some fifty lines per page, and perhaps one hundred and fifty letters in each line.

What were probably the first half dozen pages have been utterly destroyed, and the next half dozen are so mashed, tattered, and defaced, that only a few sentences here and there are legible.

I have contrived, however, to combine these into what I believe to be a substantially correct representation of the author's meaning.

The Latin is of a monastic--sometimes almost canine--quality, with many words which are not Latin at all.

For the rest, though here and there pages are illegible, and though some symbols, especially those representing numbers or chemical compounds, are absolutely undecipherable, it has been possible to effect what I hope will be found a clear and coherent translation.