Beginnings of Natural History in America. 359 



He was especially eminent in the field of mathematics. "Harriott," 

 saj'S Hallam, "was destined to make the last great discovery in the pure 

 science of algebra. . . . Harriott arrived at a complete theory of 

 the genesis of equations, which Cardan and Vieta had but partially con- 

 ceived." ' 



His improvements in algebra were adopted, we are told, by Descartes, 

 and for a considerable time imposed upon the French as his own inven- 

 tion, but the theft was at last detected and exposed -by Doctor Wallis in 

 his Treatise of Algebra, both Theoretical and Practical, London, 1685.- 



"Oldys, in his Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, has shown," says Stith, 

 "that the famous French philosopher, Descartes, borrowed much of his' 

 light from this excellent mathematician, and that the learned Doctor 

 Wallis gave the preference to Hariot's improvements before Descarte's, 

 although he had the advantage of coming after and being assisted by 

 him. ' ' ^ 



Harriot's papers were left after his death in the possession of the Percy 

 family at Petworth, where they were examined in 1787 by Doctor Zacli, 

 and later by Professor Rigaud, of Oxford, who, in 1833, published 

 in his supplement to the works of James Bradley, An Account of 

 Thomas Harriot's Astronomical Papers. His okservations on Halley's 

 comet in 1607 are still referred to as being of great importance. Zach 

 pronounced him an eminent astronomer, both theoretical and practical. 

 ' ' He was the first observer of the solar spots, on which he made a hun- 

 dred and ninety-nine observations; he also made many excellent obser- 

 vations on the satellites of Jupiter, and, indeed, it is probable that he dis- 

 covered them as early if not earlier than Galileo. " ■* 



A posthumous work, Artes Analyticse Praxis ad ^quatioues alge- 

 braicas nova, expedita et generali Methodo resolvendas, e posthumis 

 Thomas Harriot, was published in 1631 by his friend and associate, 

 Walter Warner, and there is in the library of Sion College a manu- 

 script work of his entitled Ephemeris Chyrometrica. 



Wood says that, "notwithstanding his great skill in mathematics, he 

 had strange thoughts of the Scriptures, always undervalued the old 

 story of the creation of the world, and would never believe that trite 

 proposition, 'Ex nihilo nihil fit.' " 



Stith, the historian of Virginia, protests, however, against the charge 



• Henry Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Evirope in the Fifteenth, Six- 

 teenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, 4th ed., 1854; I, pp. 454, 456; II, p. 223; III, 

 p. 181. See also J. E. Montucla, Histoire des Mathematiques • Ersch and Gruber, 

 Algemeine Encyklopaedie. 



^ It would appear, however, that Wallis may have been too enthusiastic in his admi- 

 ration of the English mathematician. Hallam states that he ascribed to Harriot a 

 long list of discoveries which have since been reclaimed for Cardan and Vieta. 



3 William Stith, History of The First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia, 

 Williamsburg, 1747, p. 20. 



••John M. Good and Olinthus Gilbert Gregory, The Pantologia, V, 1813. 



