THE LANCASHiaa GEOMETERS AND XHEIB WHITINGS. 



130 



which has usually been considered as the masterpiece of this 

 able Geometer. On the whole, however, it may reasonably 

 be doubted whether the published writings of Mr. Wolfenden 

 influenced in any great degree the increasing taste for the 

 ancient Geometry ; — they are, strictly speaking, too few and 

 too diversified as to subject to produce any marked eiFect, but 

 local tradition assigns a wider influence to his private tuition. 

 Many of his earlier pupils subsequently became distinguished 

 for their mathematical attainments, and their proficiency in 

 pure Geometry has produced the general conviction that their 

 tutor was really one of the great promoters of the revival of the 

 study of this interesting branch of Mathematical Science. 



Mr. Butterworth commenced his long and successful career 

 iia the pages of the Liverpool Student for 1797, but his 

 geometrical propensities do not begin to manifest themselves 

 before the publication of the third number for 1799. On the 

 discontinuance of this work he transferred his support to the 

 Gentleman s Mathematical Companion^ where he first appears 

 in 1801, and continued one of its ablest and most extensive 

 contributors for upwards of twenty years.* He is confessedly 

 the Prince of the Lancashire Geometers both for variety and 

 extent, for were the whole of his correspondence to this and 

 the other periodicals previously enumerated to be collected, it 

 would form several bulky volumes on Geometrical Analysis. 



The Construction of Triangles from given data would indeed 

 form a conspicuous feature of such a collection; but properties 

 of the Conic Sections and Triangles, Problems on Tangen- 

 cies and Loci, Sections of Ratio and Space, Inclinations and 

 Porisms, would appear at intervals in considerable variety, 



* For more extended sketches of the lives and writings of Messrs. Wolfenden, 

 Butterworth and Kay, I may refer to Fielding's Bisiorkal Gleanings in, Sonth 

 Lancashire, where my " Memoirs" of these distinguished Geometers are reprinted, 

 with additions. I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. E. W. Binncy for much 

 interesting information respecting the late Mr. Butterworth, and also to Mr, Henry 

 Buckley and Mr. William Lees, of Hollinwood, for aimilar information respecting 

 Messrs. Wolfeudea and Kay. 



