א (Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet) stands for the famous Codex Sinaiticus (sometimes designated by the letter S), one of the two oldest copies, apart from the papyri just described, of the Greek Bible. The story of the romantic discovery of this manuscript in the last century, when part of it was in the very act of being consumed as fuel, must be reserved for Chapter VIII. For the present it must suffice to say that it was first seen by the great German Biblical scholar, Constantine Tischendorf, in 1844, in the monastery of St. Catherine, at Mount Sinai. At his first visit he secured forty-three leaves belonging to the Old Testament, and presented them to his patron, King Frederick Augustus of Saxony, who placed them in the Court Library at Leipzig, where they still remain, with the name of the Codex Friderico-Augustanus. A subsequent visit brought to light 199 more leaves of the Old Testament and the whole of the New Testament; and these ultimately found a home in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg, until in 1933 the whole MS. was sold by the Soviet Government to the British Museum, where it is now Add.MS.43725. Parts of three more leaves were subsequently discovered in the bindings of other manuscripts in the library of Mount Sinai; these were also acquired for St. Petersburg, where they still remain. The manuscript was written in the fourth century, in a beautiful uncial hand; and it is extremely unfortunate that so much of the OLD TESTAMENT has been lost. The parts which survive include fragments of Gen.xi., xxiv., and of Num.v., vi., vii.; 1 Chron.ix.27-xix.1-7; 2 Esdras [i.e., canonical Ezra-Nehemiah] ix.9 to end; Esther, Tobit, Judith, 1 Macc., 4 Macc., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lament.i.1-ii.20, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum to Malachi, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Job. Three different scribes were employed on the writing of it, besides several correctors, the most important of whom were some scholars (indicated by the symbol א^CA or א^{c, b}) who seem to have worked on the MS. at Caesarea at the end of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century. In notes in this hand at the end of Esdras and Esther it is stated that the MS. was collated with an exceedingly ancient MS. which itself had been corrected by the martyr Pamphilus and had an autograph note by him, saying that he had corrected it in prison from Origen's own copy of the Hexapla.
Description & picture from 'Our Bible & the Ancient Manuscripts' by Sir Frederick Kenyon (1895 - 4th Ed. 1939) Pg 128 & Plate XV. (Page selection illustrated: 26 x 23cm. - page-size: 37 x 34cm. )