402 A. D. 1252. 



brought to England the ' numeral figures of the Greeks, and the know- 



* lege and fignifications of them, which he communicated to his friends. 

 ' By thefe figures letters alfo are reprefented, and, what is mod wonder- 



* ful in them, any number may be expreffed by a fingle figure, which 

 ' cannot be done with the Latin numerals or the Algorifm.' The figures, 

 as defcribed by Mathew Paris, confift of a perpendicular flroke with a 

 fliorter flroke branching off from its fide, which by the variation of its 

 pofition and angles reprefents the nine fimple numbers, thofe with the 

 branch extended to the left being units, and thofe having it on the right 

 being the fame numbers in the column of tens, to fpeak in the language 

 of our ufual numeration : for example 4 is five, |- fifty, and + fifty-five. 

 \_M. Paris, p. 835, citm var. le£l.'\ How the higher numbers were writ- 

 ten, we are not informed. Thefe numerals, if there is no error in call- 

 ing them Grecian, for fome of them are much more like the letters of 

 the Runic alphabet, are totally different from thofe of the antient 

 Greeks, who, as well as the Romans, exprefled all numbers by their 

 letters *. If they were an effort of Grecian pride to emulate, without 

 imitating, the Oriental numeral figures, they feem to have foon yielded 

 to their fuperior utility, and funk into oblivion. 



At the fame time flourifhed John de Sacro bofco, another Britifh au- 

 thor, who wrote a book upon the fphere, which has been efleemed clafP 

 ical, and has had feveral commentators and many editions, and alfo 

 treatiles upon the ailrolabie and algorithm f , which are flill in raanu- 

 fcript in the Bodleian library at Oxford. He died at Paris in the year 

 1256. [Lelandi Script. Brit. p. ^^^. — Montucla, Hijl. dc mathem. V. i, p, 

 417. — Mackenzie's Lives, V.\, p. 168.] 



About the fame time, or perhaps foraewhat earlier, lived Daniel 

 Morley, who, after ftudying at Oxford and Paris, went to Toledo for 

 the fake of learning mathematics from the Arabs or Moors, then the 

 poffeflbrs of that part of Spain. After his return to England he is faid 

 to have written two books on the lower and upper worlds ; but whether 

 he added to the ftock of fcience in England, we are not informed. \Lc~ 

 land de Script. Brit. p. 244.] 



1253 — Some appearances of manufactures of linen in both the Britifh 

 kingdoms have already been noticed. But it is probable, that they were 



* And tlicy have as little rcfemblance to the modern writers, who have inveftigated the origin 



now-obfolcte Oriental figures ^, N, /\, now writ- of numeral figures. 



ten 4, 5, 7, as they have to the modern figures. f Algorilhm, or algnrifm, called alfo aii^rim hy 



The antient figures may be feen in many manu- Cliaucer in his Concluft<ins of the ojlrolah'ie, appears 



fcripts, particularly in Clcop. li vl r.nd ix in the to have been a kind of aiithmclie, uhicii is vari- 



Cotlon library. — It is furprilijig that Iceland, in onfly defcribed by modern authors. Mjrianns 



his account of Bafingflokes, {^Script. Brit, p: 266] Scotus, who flouiilhed in the eleventh century, is 



cxtradled from that of Mathew Paris, has entire- faid to have written a trcatife upon it ; and there 



ly ntgleftcd tliis moil curious and important part arc many manufcript works upon it, befidcs that 



of it, as unworthy of notice. And it is ftill more of John de Sacro bofco mentioned in the text, one 



■t'Jrprifing that it is alfo unnoticed by mod of the particularly in the volume of the Cotton library, 



Chop. B, vi, mentioned in the preceding note. 



