98 Traiisactions. — Miscellaneous. 



the uncouth terms devised by this innovator ; but if there had 

 been any sound basis for the suggestion itself the professor 

 would have treated the paradoxer more seriously. 



A duodecimal scale has had numerous advocates, and a 

 large amount of work has been done in the way of compiling 

 tables, &c., in appropriate notation by isolated workers, many 

 completely ignorant of the fact that others have gone and are 

 going over the same ground. I have seen more than one 

 publication on the subject. One of these, by Mr. Henry M. 

 Parkhurst, an American mathematician, contains elaborate 

 tables of logarithms, primary and secondary multiples, least 

 divisors, &c., all calculated on the radix of twelve, and I 

 understand that the author has much more matter of the same 

 kind in manuscript. He uses X and A, contracted to the 

 width of the other digits, to represent ten and eleven, and 

 these two special characters give his tables a peculiar appear- 

 ance. There is, or was, a Duodecimal Society in England, 

 formed to bring about organized and united action, but I have 

 never seen any of its publications, nor do I know its address. 

 The most prominent duodecimalist, however, was the late Sir 

 Isaac Pitman, who took up the subject with characteristic 

 energy. His attention was directed to the matter through 

 the agitation in and out of Parliament in favour of the 

 metric system, among the defects of which he held that its 

 decimalism was not the least. " With a view to carrymg his 

 proposal into practice," his biographer writes,''' " new types 

 were ordered (?, ten, and 'i, eleven) in four sizes, and it was 

 Mr. Pitman's intention to employ the new notation in his 

 Journal, and to recommend it for general adoption. During 

 1857-58 he counted everything as far as possible by dozens 

 and grosses, with a view of paving the way for the new 

 numeration ; but he was unequal to the task of undertaking a 

 reform of this magnitude in addition to the writing and spell- 

 ing reform, and after a series of trials he reluctantly aban- 

 doned the project, but not without hope of seeing it inaugu- 

 rated at some future period." For two years he used the 

 notation in his Journal, and kept it up in his private accounts 

 till 1862. His scheme included a coinage system — pence, 

 shillings (a gold twelve-shilling-piece to take the place of the 

 half-sovereign), and " bancos " = a gross of shillings. The 

 figures " 7S3," with currency symbol prefixed, would thus 

 repx'esent seven "bancos," ten shillings, three pence. He 

 probably proposed to reform current weights and measures on 

 the same plan, but, not having access to the old Journal files, 



•"A Biography of Isaac Pitman, Inventor of Phonography." By 

 Thomas Allan Reed. London : Griffith, Parran, Okeden, and Welsh. 

 1890. 



