quire.[2] And as our fragment belongs to the oldest class of uncial
manuscripts, the manner of arranging the sheets of quires seems to favor
the supposition that two outside leaves are missing. The hypothesis is,
moreover, strengthened by another consideration. According to the
foliation supplied by the fifteenth-century Arabic numerals, the leaf
which must have followed our fragment bore the number 54, the leaf
preceding it having the number 47. If we assume that our fragment was
a complete gathering, we are obliged to explain why the next gathering
began on a leaf bearing an even number (54), which is abnormal. We do
not have to contend with this difficulty if we assume that folios 47 and
54 formed the outside sheet of our fragment, for six quires of eight
leaves and one of six would give precisely 54 leaves. It seems,
therefore, reasonable to assume that our fragment is not a complete
unit, but formed part of a quaternion, the outside sheet of which is
missing.

[Footnote 2: In an examination of all the uncial manuscripts in the
Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, it was found that out of twenty
manuscripts that may be ascribed to the fifth and sixth centuries
only two had the hair side on the outside of the quires. Out of
thirty written approximately between A.D. 600 and 800, about half
showed the same practice, the other half having the hair side
outside. Thus the practice of our oldest Latin scribes agrees with
that of the Greek: see C.R. Gregory, “Les cahiers des manuscrits
grecs” in _Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres_ (1885), p. 261. I am informed by Professor Hyvernat,
of the Catholic University of Washington, that the same custom is
observed by Coptic scribes.]