12 REPORT —1873. 



possession or were lent by friends ; and wc must acknowledge the kind assist- 

 ance rendered b)^ Mr. C. W. Mcrrifield, F.R.S., of whose mathematical library 

 we hope to make more nsc in a future Eeport. 



Art. 11. The lleport is avowedly very imperfect; it contains probably not 

 one half of the works that have as good a right to be noticed as those that 

 are iuchided. This defect will be remedied by the publication of an Appen- 

 dix or additional lleport on the same subject, probably after the appearance 

 of the Eeports on the other divisions. As it would be clearly impossible to 

 have made this lleport perfect (and had it been possible, it would have occu- 

 pied more space than could be given to it), an Appendix giving the results 

 of the examinations of the memoirs, transactions, &c. in reference to this 

 class of tables would have had in any case to be added after the com- 

 pletion of the other divisions ; and on this account it seemed unnecessary 

 to take especial pains to procure works that were clearly of no very great 

 importance, or to insert imperfect second-hand accounts of tables that would 

 in all probability be met with in the course of the formation of the subse- 

 quent Reports. Invariably, however, whenever a reference was found to a 

 table that seemed of importance, no pains have been spared in the endeavour 

 to obtain and examine a copy ; in the event of these efforts being fruitless, 

 a notice of the work compiled from other accounts has been given, with an 

 intimation of the source whence the information was derived ; but only three 

 or four works arc included that have not come under the eye of the reporter. 

 It is probable that there may have been published recent works on the 

 continent no coj^j' of which is contained in any of the public libraries of this 

 country ; and on this account it will probably be found very difficult to 

 make the list perfect. The present Report is, however, so far complete that 

 the Committee think they may ask mathematicians or comimters who are ac- 

 quainted with any works not included in it or in De Morgan, to inform them 

 of the fact. It is only in this way that completeness can bo obtained, as 

 although, by an examination of the transactions &c. to M^hich references are 

 given at the beginning of the Royal Society's catalogue, the completion of the 

 accounts of tables contained in memoirs &c. would be merely a matter of time 

 and labour on the part of the members of the Committee, the discovery and de- 

 scription of books printed in out-of-lhe-way places, or for private circulation, 

 can only be effected by the cooperation of mathematicians who may happen 

 to possess copies*. The Report, however, as it now stands, will be found to 

 contain more information about tables than is to be found anywhere else ; in 

 fact, except De Morgan's list (referred to in art. 3 of this section), we know no 

 place where any attempt is made to cover the ground included in this Report ; 

 and though De Morgan has referred to more works than are described here in 

 detail (even when commercial tables are excluded), it must be borne in mind 

 that his descriptions are too short and general to be of great value, that more 

 than a third of his accounts arc compiled from sources other than the original 

 works, and that he has made no attempt to do more than roughly classify the 

 works (not the tables) ; in fact a more detailed description or classification was 

 excluded by the plan of his article, Avhich notwithstanding gives a great deal 

 of information in a very small space. 



Art. 12. By an oversight (which was not discovered till it was too late to 

 remedy it) wc have excluded from the Report traverse tables, viz. Differencc- 

 of-latitude and Departure tables, which under the head of multii^les of sines 

 and cosines ought to have been noticed. Such tables are of general use in 



« It is requested that communication.^: may be addressed to BJr. J. W. L. Glaishcr, 

 Trinity College, Cambridge. 



