CHAPTER V.
MISCELLANEOUS NUMBER BASES.
In the development and extension of any series of numbers into a systematic arrangement to which the term _system_ may be applied, the first and most indispensable step is the selection of some number which is to serve as a base.

When the savage begins the process of counting he invents, one after another, names with which to designate the successive steps of his numerical journey.

At first there is no attempt at definiteness in the description he gives of any considerable number.

If he cannot show what he means by the use of his fingers, or perhaps by the fingers of a single hand, he unhesitatingly passes it by, calling it many, heap, innumerable, as many as the leaves on the trees, or something else equally expressive and equally indefinite.

But the time comes at last when a greater degree of exactness is required.