Notices respecting New Booki. 137 



are said to be more valuable than those of the elephant, as being 

 more compact and hard, and consequently taking a finer polish: 

 the skin, which is nearly an inch thick, is used to cover the masts • 

 or yards of ships, where tliey cross each other, to prevent their 

 being injured by the frictica. It was formerly cut into ropes; 

 and IBuffon mentions its being used at Paris in the springs of car- 

 riages. 



'* The walrus becomes very furious when attacked, and the 

 whole herd join to revenge any injury an individual may have re- 

 ceived. If wounded in the water, they will sometimes surround 

 the boat, and attempt to sink her, by striking their tusks against 



her sides and bottom." 



The first Centenanj of a Series of concise and vseful Tables of 



complete Decimal Quotients: To which is added, a Tabular 



Series, ivith the Equivalent Vulgar Fractions prefixed. By 



Henry Goodwyn. pp.31. 



The author of this elaborate work, the ingenuity and accu- 

 racy of which cannot be too highly praised, remarks in illustra- 

 tion of the conciseness with which the Tables have been made up, 

 that if the quotients arising from ea:h divisor and dividend had 

 been exhibited, they would, as ascertained by a well known 

 arithmetical process, have amounted for this centenary to 



100 X 101 -r- 2-\ 



or v=5050; 



101 X 50 ) 



whereas, the whole number of entered quotients is only 1522, so 

 that there is an apparent deficiency of 352S. This very consi- 

 derable diminution arises, in the first place, from expunging 

 under each particular divisor such of its appropriate dividends as 

 are not prime to it ; — and, in the second place, from the mode 

 in which the dividends are disposed in the tables. " The useful- 

 ness of such tables," adds the author, " will be obvious to all who 

 are in the haijit of applying decimals to the purposes of the arts, 

 sciences, or mercantile concerns." 



Lest it should be inferred, from the appearance of this work 

 at a time when a bill is under the consideration of Parliament for 

 the cqii;dization of the weights and measures of the kingdom, 

 that tiie author is an advocate for a decimal division, he states 

 his opinion to be — that for common use the standards of both 

 •should be derived from 2 and its powers ; and where any inter- 

 vening weights or measures are necessary, that they should be 

 expressed by products pf that number. It is shown in various 

 parts of the work, that when the divisor is 2, or a power of 2, 

 the decimal i|uotients uniformly terminate, or are perfect. The 

 same is the case also with 5 and its powers — and when the 

 divisor is a product of 2 or of a power of 2, by 5, or by a power 

 of 5. While, therefore, the even number 2 and its powers seem 



preferable 



