chrommuda karboon = 3-1.
Instances of quaternary numeration are less rare than are those of ternary, and there is reason to believe that this method of counting has been practised more extensively than any other, except the binary and the three natural methods, the quinary, the decimal, and the vigesimal.

The number of fingers on one hand is, excluding the thumb, four.

Possibly there have been tribes among which counting by fours arose as a legitimate, though unusual, result of finger counting; just as there are, now and then, individuals who count on their fingers with the forefinger as a starting-point.

But no such practice has ever been observed among savages, and such theorizing is the merest guess-work.

Still a definite tendency to count by fours is sometimes met with, whatever be its origin.