  We investigate several statistical properties of the order book of three
liquid stocks of the Paris Bourse. The results are to a large degree
independent of the stock studied. The most interesting features concern (i) the
statistics of incoming limit order prices, which follows a power-law around the
current price with a diverging mean; and (ii) the humped shape of the average
order book, which can be quantitatively reproduced using a `zero intelligence'
numerical model, and qualitatively predicted using a simple approximation.
