10 REPORT 1873. 



Art. 6. To the particular editions of the ■works described no importance 

 is to be attributed. It would obviously have been impossible to alwaj^s tix 

 upon the first or last edition as the one to be described ; in fact we had no 

 choice ; we took what we could get. The list in § 5 always contains portions 

 of the titlepage of the same edition of the work that is described in § 3 or 

 § 4 of the Eeport ; the particular edition chosen was usually determined by the 

 accidental circumstance of its being the first that was examined, anj^ informa- 

 tion that was subsequently obtained about other editions being added at the 

 end of the description of the contents of the woric in § 3 or § 4. It would 

 have been better to have always taken as the standard the last edition pro- 

 curable, and pointed out whereia it differed from its predecessors ; but this 

 would have required much rewriting of particular portions, and considerably 

 increased the labour of preparation, with a very small increase of regularity 

 in the arrangement of the llcport, but with no corresponding increase in its 

 value. 



Art. 7. In every case where a table has been described from inspection, all 

 the tables themselves have been examined, and not merely their titlepages, 

 tables of contents, &c. This was of course absolutely necessary in very many 

 instances, as it is comparatively rare that any thing more than a general 

 notion of the contents of a collection of tables can be gathered from the author's 

 explanations ; but in any case it was essential if the Ileport was to have any 

 value for accuracy, because the titles assigned by their authors were sometimes 

 misleading, if not absolutely erroneous ; and frequently, even if the more im- 

 portant tables had headings or descriptions prefixed, the smaller ones (which are 

 often more worthy of notice on account of their rarity or mathematical value) 

 were passed over. It must here be remarked that it is never safe to take 

 a description of a table from its author or editor, as it is not a very uncommon 

 thing to give as the contents of a table, not that which can be found from it at 

 once, but what can be obtained from the table by means of additional Avork, 

 such as an interpolation. Thus, under the heading " Table of logarithms to 

 eight decimals " is sometimes given a table to five places, and a formula from 

 which to calculate the remaining three. • 



Another case in point is Steinbeeger's table, described in this Report, the 

 titlepage of which describes it as giving the logarithms of all numbers to 

 1,000,000, when in point of fact it only extends to 10,000- — the jusiification 

 for the title being that two more figures can be interpolated for. It is not 

 to be supposed, when svich misstatements occur, that the author of the table 

 has any desire to mislead, as they usually result from ignorance ; but it is a 

 matter of regret, when it has become customary (and most properly so) that 

 a table should be described on its title as giving onlj' what can be taken out 

 of it without additional calculation, that this rule should sometimes be vio- 

 lated and a designation given that is, to say the least, misleading. AVe have 

 also met with such instances as the following :- — The title of a book is given 

 ill a bookseller's catalogue as (sav) " Table of divisors of numbers from 1 to 

 10,000,000 ;" but ^ the following"' words (say), " Part I. from 1 to 150,000" 

 (when perhaps no more was ever published), are left out — an omission of 

 rather an important character as regards the contents and value of the table. 

 Cases of this kind show how imperatively necessary it is to examine the 

 table itself; and whenever the description of a table is taken from an adver- 

 tisement, bookseller's catalogue, or other second-hand source, there is great 

 liability to error. 



Art. 8. The names of authors occurring in the text have been printed in 

 small capitals when the work of theirs alluded to is described in this Eeport, 



