INTERESTING VOLUMES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 392, 2 September 1911, Page 7

INTERESTING VOLUMES.

__4 THE LARGEST, THE SMALLEST AND THE MOST EXPENSIVE BOOK PUBLISHED.

The largest bound book ever made was owned by Queen Victoria. It weighs 63 pounds, and is IS inches thick.

For the Hebraic Bible in the \ atican in 1512 the Jews offered Poo; Julius 11. its weight in gold—loo, 000 dollars ; but the Pope would not part with it. More expensive even, if not more Valuable, is the official history o.' the war of the Rebellion, issued by the U.S. Government at a cost o' nearly 3,000,000 dollars. Nearly on v half of this amount was paid fi i printing and binding, and the rest for salaries, rent, stationery, an 1 such expenses as purchasing record.from private individuals. It was H years in the making, consisting oi 112 volumes. A set of 5020 volumes in tlr Chi nese department of the British Mu seum constitutes the largest look in the world. It is an encyclopaedia*' of the the literature of China frorr 1000 B.C. to 1700 A.D., a period o 28 centuries. The work in Engl n was purchased for 6000 dollars, bcin; one of the three copies in existence It was 40 years in compilation, an was ordered by Emperor Kang-Ile who reigned from 1602 to 1722.

The smallest book in the worl ' not much larger th a n a man' thumbnail, was made in Italy, t' text being a letter, before unpub lished, written by the inventor of th pendulum clock to Mme. Christina of Lorraine, in 1615. It is fo ir tenths of an inch long, a quarter o an inch wide, contains 208 pages each with nine lines, and from ;)f> t--100 letters. Next smallest is ;u edition of Dante's "Divine Comedy," a little less than an inch wide, with type, so small that it takes a micro scope to read the letters.—New-York "Sun."