VOL. LVIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONK. 555 



separated into 18 parts. Each of these parts was planted again separately. 

 These plants having pushed out several side shoots about the middle of Septem- 

 ber, some of them were then taken up, and divided : and the rest of them be- 

 tween that time and the middle of October. This "Zd division produced 67 plants. 

 These plants remained through the winter ; and another division of them, made 

 between the middle of March and the 12th of April, produced 500 plants. They 

 were then divided no further, but permitted to remain. 



The plants were in general stronger than any of the wheat in the fields. Some 

 of them produced upwards of 100 ears from a single root. Many of the ears 

 measured 7 inches in length, and contained between 60 and 70 grains. The 

 whole number of ears, which by the process before mentioned were produced 

 from one grain of wheat, was 21109, which yielded 3 pecks and 3 quarters of 

 clear corn ; the weight of which was 47 lb. 7 oz. ; and, from a calculation made 

 by counting the number of grains in one ounce, the whole number of grains 

 might be about 576,840. 



By this account we find, that there was only one general division of the plants 

 made in the spring. Had a second been made, the number of plants, Mr. Miller 

 thinks, would have amounted at least to 2000, instead of 500; and the produce 

 have been much enlarged. For he found by the experiment made the preceding 

 year, in which the plants were divided twice in the spring, that they were not 

 weakened by the 2d division. He mentions this to show that the experiment 

 was not pushed to the utmost. The ground, in which this experiment was 

 made, is a light blackish soil, on a gravelly bottom, and consequently a bad soil 

 for wheat. One half of the ground was very much dunged ; the other half was 

 not prepared with dung, or any other manure : no difference was however dis- 

 coverable in the vigour or growth of the plants, nor was there any in their 

 produce. 



XXXII. On the Theory of Circulating Decimal Fractions. By John Robert- 

 son, Lib. R.S. p. 207. - 

 Regiomontanus, it is said, first among Europeans, added to the then known 

 arithmetic, an operation by decimal fractions ; which he exemplified in his tri- 

 angular table. Its utility was readily seen, and embraced in many nations, and 

 particularly in this ; where it appears to have been cultivated in its theory, and 

 facile modes of operation, more than in other places. Mr. R. here adverts to 

 several particulars in the theory of these numbers, but several later publications, 

 on a more extensive scale, have rendered this paper of little or no use at 

 present, 



4 B '2 



