VOL. VI.] miLOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 605 



bus D. P. de Fermat Senatoris Tholosani : Cui accessit Doctrinae Analytica 

 Inventum Novum. Tolosae, 1670, in folio. 



The works of Diophantus Alexandrinus concerning numeral algebra or ana- 

 lytics, and figurate numbers, which were formerly published in Greek and Latin 

 by Gasper Bachet, with his commentaries thereon, and some treatises of his 

 own, prefixed and subjoined thereto ; are here printed anew with the annota- 

 tions of that excellent senator of the parliament of Tholouse, M. Fermat; to- 

 gether witli some new inventions of his in numeral algebra, and the solution of 

 divers numeral problems, omitted by others : collected out of his private letters 

 by R. P. Jacobus de Billy S. I. All published by M. Fermat, junior. 



IV. Rosetum Geometricum, cum Censura brevi Doctrinae Wallisianae de 

 Motu, Auth. Thoma Hobbes Malmesburiensi. Londini, 1671, in 4to. 



Mr. Hobbes is very angry with Dr. Wallis, for exposing his errors and false 

 reasoning concerning his pretended quadrature of the circle, &c. and the mat- 

 ter is only made worse by his obstinacy, and his ignorance in mathematics. 



The book itself treats first of 21 propositions, said by the author to have 

 been attempted hitherto in vain : adding a censure concerning Dr. Wallis's two 

 first parts of motion and mechanics, which has some strictures accusing those 

 treatises of pretended obscurity and vicious definitions. 



V. The Prodromus of a Dissertation concerning a Solid contained in a Solid, 

 by Nicolaus Steno. Englished out of Latin. London, 1671, in 8vo. 



The author of this curious and learned Prodromus, apprehending that he 

 might be diverted for a great while from finishing his intended main dissertation 

 touching the frame and changes of the earth, and the manner of the produc- 

 tions made therein ; thought fit to deliver in this tract both a scheme and a 

 breviate of the same ; not only delineating the method he has therein observed, 

 but also sums up the most considerable particulars of his whole design. 



He says then, that he has divided that dissertation into four parts. The 

 first is to show, that the question about marine substances, found at a great 

 distance from the sea, is ancient, pleasant and useful, and that though the 

 solution thereof has been hitherto very uncertain, yet he hopes he shall be 

 able to bring it to a certainty. The second resolves this general problem, 

 viz. A natural body of a certain figure being given, to find arguments and 

 marks in the body itself, whereby to detect the place and manner of its pro- 

 duction : which problem he affirms to have so resolved, that no sect of philo- 

 sophers shall find just cause to except against the principles and notions by him 

 supposed for its explication. The third is designed to examine the particular 

 solids included in a solid, according to the laws discovered in the resolution of 

 the general problem. ThQ fourth is to represent the diiFerent states or con- 



