36 Observations on the Notations employed in 



It has been before remarked, that a new notation is very 

 likely to arrest the progress of an uninitiated reader. I 

 will mention an instance : I some time ago had the good 

 fortune to fall in with an ingenious mechanic at Penzance, 

 who has been for several years in the habit of answering many 

 and sometimes most of the mathematical questions proposed 

 in the Diaries, &c. ; he told me that he had taught himself 

 the fluxional calculus, and that by reading the Diaries and 

 other publications of that description, he had learned to read 

 and to use the differential mode ; but having never met with 

 any explanation of the suffix notation, he could not at all un- 

 derstand it, nor had he been able with all his application to 

 read a solution written in that language so as to comprehend 

 the steps in the demonstration ; it had baffled all his efforts, 

 and he had given up the attempt to find out its meaning. 



I for one sincerely respect the votaries of science, even when 

 education, leisure, fortune, and every concomitant tend to 

 place them in the most favourable position. No one values 

 more highly than I do the labours of professors, &c, whose 

 very calling, the sole business of their life, is science; whose 

 minds are very often kept on the stretch as a mere matter of 

 bread and cheese; but if men like these are entitled to esteem 

 for their mental endowments — and I trust they always will be — 

 is not the man deserving of it who, after his daily manual toil 

 of a laborious description, devotes his hours to science and, 

 notwithstanding every disheartening difficulty, works his way 

 up to her most secluded walks? If this be so, should not 

 men eminent by talent as well as by position be careful to 

 throw no impediments in the rugged paths of such sons of 

 genius. 



At all events, I think they should ; but it is possible that 

 I may have formed a hasty or a partial judgement upon the 

 subject, for I well know many of the difficulties attending such 

 a course, and I readily admit that I have had the case above- 

 named in my mind's eye in writing the above remarks ; whether 

 1 have been skilfully keeping to the point so as to effect my pur- 

 pose or not, is a question not for me to decide : I am quite 

 sure that each and all of the authors that I have mentioned 

 would much more willingly assist such devoted disciples of 

 science as the very remarkable one to whom I have alluded, 

 and indeed all others, than place the least obstruction in 

 their arduous paths. 



Many of the most esteemed mathematical authors of the 

 day are correspondents or readers of this publication : the 

 object of this paper has been to bring to their notice the loss 

 of time which attends their using new notations in scientific 



