428 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



correspondingly lessened. The mental work in using it would not 

 probably be more than half that called for by our notation, while the 

 number of places of figures required would be only slightly greater. 

 The year 1878 would also be expressed by four figures, 3536, in the 

 eight scale. Its fractions would be much simpler than those of the 

 decimal system. They would differ very little from those of the sixteen 

 scale. 



The merits of the octonary scale have long attracted the attention 

 of those interested in the subject of numerical notation. Charles XII. 

 of Sweden seriously proposed introducing it in his kingdom. He com- 

 missioned Swedenborg to prepare the necessary details of a plan for es- 

 tablishing it. It is said that a complete system was elaborated, but the 

 attempt to introduce it was prevented by the death of the king. No 

 record of the system has been preserved. 



But a complete octonary system has been elaborated, and a descrip- 

 tion of it was read by its author before one of our scientific associations 

 about twenty years ago. In many respects, the details of it resemble 

 those of the tonal system, which, in point of time, it preceded. New 

 names were supplied for the digits as follows : 



The names of the larger numbers were made by compounding those 

 of the smaller. Thus the present year, 3536, would be called thetyder 

 pader thety se. 



The octonary, like the tonal and quaternary scales, is without doubt 

 admirably adapted to a natural system of weights and measures, and it 

 is not without interest from a theoretical point of view. The disad- 

 vantages of the decimal system are clearly great, but the projects of 

 those who expect to subvert it, with its immense store of arithmetical 

 tables and formulas, are of course chimerical in the last degree. The 

 author of the octonary system, just described, declared that the change 

 involved no real difficulty, and that the national Government had only 

 to will it, in order to bring the octonary scale into general use in one 

 or two generations. But although the introduction of this or any other 

 numerical scale in the place of the decimal is a dream without any 

 probability of fulfillment, there can be no question that, theoretically, 

 the octonary system of notation would be a vast improvement upon the 

 one now in use, the basis of which was ignorantly bequeathed to us by 

 our savage and barbarous ancestors. 



