434 A Century of Science 



ation, was I too rash in aiming at a result infinitely 

 grander than Archimedes's speculative displacement 

 of the earth?" 



That eminent mathematician, Dr. Nathaniel 

 Bowditch, used to say that sometimes, when 

 Laplace passed from one equation to the next with 

 an " evidently," he would find a week's study neces- 

 sary to cross the abyss which the transcendent 

 mind of the master traversed in a single leap. I 

 fancy that more than a week would be needed to 

 fathom the Octogenarian's " hence," and it would 

 by no means be worth while to go through so 

 much and get so little. After a few pages of the 

 Octogenarian, we are prepared to hear that in 

 1750 one Henry Sullamar squared the circle by 

 the number of the Beast with seven heads and 

 ten horns ; and that in 1753 a certain French 

 officer, M. de Causans, " cut a circular piece of 

 turf, squared it, and deduced original sin and the 

 Trinity." l 



The reader is doubtless by this time weary of so 

 much tomfoolery ; but as it is needful, for the due 

 comprehension of crankery and its crotchets, that 

 he should by and by have still more of it, I will 

 give him a moment's relief while I tell of a little 

 game with which De Morgan and Whewell once 



1 De Morgan, p. 179. 



