368 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



Tatlock, John S. P., Leland Stanford Junior University. Preparation of a 

 Concordance to Chaucer. (For previous reports see Year Books Nos. 

 16-18, 20.) 



In the fall of 1921 Dr. Tatlock went to Scotland to consult the manuscript 

 collations left by the late George Stevenson. From these he extracted a con- 

 siderable number of valuable variants for the concordance, derived from prac- 

 tically all the extant manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales. He had previously 

 gained the generous assistance of Professor R. K. Root for securing variants 

 from all the extant manuscripts of the Troilus. Thus for three-quarters of 

 Chaucer's poetry all important variants have been secured, it is hoped. Vari- 

 ants have also been obtained from all extant editions, including, by Professor 

 F. N. Robinson's kind cooperation, his edition, which is not yet published. 

 The purpose has been to make sure, so far as possible, that all readings likely 

 at any time to be adopted by an editor shall be recorded in the concordance. 

 Since his return from Scotland, Dr. Tatlock has been adjusting the arrange- 

 ment of the quarter-million slips; that is, the numerous spellings for each word 

 have been put together, and the pairs of words, sometimes separate, sometimes 

 hyphened, and sometimes united, have been adjusted. This extensive task is 

 almost finished. 



MATHEMATICS. 



Morley, Frank, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. Appli- 

 cation of cremona groups to the solution of algebraic equations. (For 

 previous reports see Year Books Nos. 9-17, 19.) 



Professor Coble has continued his researches along the lines mentioned in the 

 last report. Two abstracts have appeared in the Proceedings of the National 

 Academy of Science for August and December 1921. Three or four further 

 abstracts will be submitted soon. A memoir on associated sets of points, 

 related to the above work as well as to earlier papers, is in preparation for the 

 Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. A general introduction to 

 the subject which has grown up under the grant is given in Professor Coble's 

 symposium lecture at the April meeting in Chicago, and will appear this fall in 

 the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. 



The two following problems still elude solution: Schottky has obtained 

 formulas for the ten nodes of a Cayley symmetroid in terms of modular func- 

 tions of genus 4. Given, then, the symmetroid, to find a curve of genus 4 which 

 defines these functions. 



The rational sextic defines a group of genus 5, the symmetroid a group of 

 genus 4, yet either figure determines the other. What is the connection thus 

 indicated between the functions of genus 4 and of genus 5? The methods 

 employed, though of necessity indirect, yield results which appear to bear on 

 these problems. 



