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LITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 



division of the science their knowledge was far 

 from being inconsiderable. The works of the most 

 eminent Greek geometricians were translated, and 

 the schools of the East supplied in their vernacular 

 tongue with versions of Euclid, Theodosius, Hyp- 

 sicles, Menelaus, and Apollonius of Perga. 



How highly these studies were valued by Alma- 

 moun, may be imagined from his liberal offer of 100 

 pounds weight of gold to engage in his service the 

 famous mathematician Leo of Constantinople, who 

 was then employed by the Emperor Theophilus in 

 delivering lectures and establishing schools in his ca- 

 pital. But the invitation was declined; as the Greeks, 

 from a foolish vanity of their superior excellence, 

 were jealous of imparting to heathens the sacred fire 

 of their learning. Ibn Korrah enriched the li- 

 terature of his country with translations of Archi- 

 medes and the Conies of Apollonius. But none of 

 them seem to have bequeathed to the world any trea- 

 tises of importance ; and, at the revival of letters in 

 the fifteenth century, this branch of the science is 

 said to have been found nearly in the state in which 

 it was left by Euclid. Brucker, in his History of 

 Philosophy, maintains that the Saracens owed their 

 mathematical knowledge solely to the Greeks, and 

 that the study made no progress whatever in their 

 hands. But later writers, particularly Montucla, 

 have done ample justice to their researches in cer- 

 tain departments of this sublime science. 



Trigonometry derived from the Arabs the form 

 which it still retains. They substituted the use of 

 sines for that of the chord, which had been employed 

 by the ancients. Ibn Musa and Geber composed 

 original works on spherical trigonometry ; and Al- 



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