Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1920 — DATE THERE, THOUGH HIDDEN [ARTICLE]

DATE THERE, THOUGH HIDDEN

information on Peaco Tower Erected In Canada Would Puzzle Average Men to Find. Back to the earliest times when man erected public or memorial buildings is said to run the practice of recording the date so that it remains hidden from casual view, in an ornament of inscription, and can only be read by careftrl study. Why the practice started it is now impossible to say; It looks almost like a playfulness on the part of the first builders, but it has continued down the ages, and its latest example occurs in the great peace tower of the government buildings ir Ottawa. Here one reads the inscription : This B*one was laid h y Edward, Prince of Wales, 3—z September 1. —— — In thia Year of Victory. . Finis Coronat Opvs. — The hypothetical stranger from Mars might reasonably ask when was the Year of Victory ; and if he examined the inscription clbsely hex might discover that certain letters, beginning with the first *l,” are distinguished from the rest by having an indentation under them, and that adding these letters together answered his question in Roman numerals. Most of us, perhaps, would have to take the dictionary to help us translate them, but none the less ILIDDDICLIIIVICnCV means 1919. —Christian Science Monitor.