292 TABLES OF CONSTANTS OF NATURE AND ART. 



16. Buildings. Height of all temples, pyramids, churches, towers, 

 columns, etc.; also all single stones, as obelisks, and area covered by 

 ditto ; area of all great public buildings. Dimensions of all columns 

 in ancient temples ; lengths of all bridges ; of span of each arch, and 

 height, also breadth of piers. 



Such tables may be found in Wiebeking, Architecture Civile, in — . 



17. Weights, measures, etc., factors and their logarithms to convert 

 all money of every country into English pounds sterling. 



Factors and their logarithms to convert weights of every country 

 into English pounds avoirdupois. 



foot and all measures in every country into English feet, 

 measures of area, acres, etc., into English acres, 

 liquid measures in every'country into English imperial gallons. 

 These are already collected in several works of Lohmann, of Dresden. 

 See also Universal Cambist. 



18. Tables of the frequency of occurrence of the various letters of 

 the alphabet in different languages ; of the frequency of occurrence of 

 the same letters at the beginnings or endings ol words ; as the second 

 or as the penultimate letters of words ; of the number of double letters 

 occurring in different languages ; of the proportion of letters com- 

 mencing surnames amongst different nations. 



See Quetelet, Correspondence math., also Dissertatio inauguralis 

 mathematica de literarum proportionibus, Ed. Hayez, Bruxelles, 1829. 



19. Table of number of books in great public libraries at given 

 dates ; number of students at various universities. Observatories of 

 the world; transit, its length, diameter of object- glass, maker; circle^ 

 length of telescope, aperture, diameter of divided circle, maker. 



It would be desirable to give the date of the different eras by which 

 time is computed, and perhaps tables of the reigns of sovereigns. 

 Also a chronological table, at least of scientific discoveries and their 

 authors. 



In the above enumeration, which is far from complete, some few of 

 the uses of such a volume are noticed ; others will present themselves 

 to every reader, and probably many unexpected ones will arise. The 

 facts being all expressed in numbers, if printed in small type and 

 well arranged, would not occupy a large space. Most of the constants 

 mentioned in this list already exist, and the difficulty of collecting 

 them would consist chiefly in a judicious selection of those which 

 deserve the greatest confidence. The labor of extracting them from 

 a great variety of volumes, and of reducing the weights and measures 

 of othei- countries to our own, could be jierformed by clerks. To any 

 individual who might attempt it, it must be a work of great labor and 

 difficulty, and there are few persons possessing the varied knowlege 

 which such a task implies, wliose talents might not be differently 

 employed with more advantage to science. It is also certain that 

 such an assemblage of facts, emanating from the collected judgment 

 of many, would naturally command greater attention than if it were 

 the produce of any single individual, however eminent. 



It appears, then, that such a work is particularly fitted to be the 



