328 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1717' 



send over into England this original book, by which he not only amended 

 several faults committed by the copyists in a double transcription, but was also 

 assured that this Arabic book was a verbal translation from the Greek ; the same 

 schemes marked with the same letters, and the whole context being the same 

 in the first 4 books of it, as in the Greek Apollonius. This valuable manuscript, 

 with about 800 others, Oriental and Greek, has since, by the donation of that 

 most venerable prelate, made a noble accession to the Bodleian Library, where it 

 is now deposited. It appears by an epigraph at the end, to have been written 

 in the year of Christ 1303, and to have been a copy of a translation of the 

 Conies, made some ages before by Thebit Ben Corah, but then newly revised 

 by that famous Persian mathematician Nasireddin, who flourished about the 

 middle of our 13th century. 



Besides this, the editor tells us, that on this occasion he consulted another 

 Arabic manuscript (heretofore Ravius's) of great antiquity, being an epitome of 

 the same books by Abdolmelec of Schiraz, every where agreeing in the order 

 and argument with the former, but abridged. So that having had these helps, 

 he is in hopes that he has so far retrieved those 3 books of Apollonius, that 

 the loss of the Greek text may henceforth be less lamented. 



The 8th book of these Conies was wanting in the Greek copies, even before 

 the translation of them into Arabic by Thebit: but it having been observed that 

 there was a very near relation between the arguments of the 7th and 8th books, 

 for that the same lemmata of Pappus were common to them both, which are 

 different from all the rest, it seemed that the theoremata dioristica of the 7th 

 book were designed to determine the limits of the problemata diorismena of the 

 8th ; and therefore supposing what those problems might have been, and their 

 order from that of the said theorems. Dr. Halley has, in 33 propositi'ons, given 

 the analyses and syntheses of them, after the method of the ancients, every 

 where following the steps of Apollonius as found in his 7th book. This he calls 

 conicorum liber octavus restitutes, and may serve the turn, till such time as the 

 original 8th book come to light ; if that be not now to be despaired of. 



Because of the affinity of the subject, he has subjoined the two books of 

 Serenus Antissensis, the Greek text of which was never before in print. This 

 was procured by the abovesaid Rev. Dean of Christchurch, Dr. Aldrich, in a 

 collated copy of three manuscripts, extant in the king's library at Paris, and by 

 him communicated for the use of the public. To this also is added the Latin 

 translation of Commandine, which in many cases needed castigation. 



As to the authors themselves, little needs be said, having stood the test of so 

 many ages, and been highly valued by the learned in all times, especially the 

 Conies, justly esteemed a masterpiece in the geometry of the ancients : so that 



