50 REPORT — 1873. 



tiou of Briggian logarithms in the ahove detail, as there seems every proba- 

 bility that the relations of Napier and Briggs may become a subject of con- 

 troversy among those who have never taken the trouble to examine the 

 original sources of information, Hutton, in his ' History of Logarithms ' 

 (prefixed to all the early editions of his logarithmic tables, and also printed 

 in vol. i. pp. 306-340 of his ' Tracts,' 1812), has unfortunately interpreted all 

 Briggs's statements with regard to the invention of decimal logarithms in a 

 manner clearly contrary to their true meaning, and unfair to Napier. In 

 reference to the remark in Briggs's preface to the ' Chilias,' that it is to he 

 Jiojjed that the posthumous work will explain why the logarithms are different 

 from Napier's, Hutton proceeds : — " And as Napier, after communication had 

 with Briggs on the subject of altering the scale of logarithms, had given notice, 

 both in Wright's translation and in his own ' Rabdologia,' printed in 161 7, 

 of his intention to alter the scale (though it appears very plainly that he never 

 intended to compute any more), without making any mention of the share 

 Avhich Briggs had in the alteration, this gentleman modestly gave the above 

 hint. But not finding any regard paid to it in the said posthumous work, 

 published by Lord Napier's son in 1619, where the alteration is again adverted 

 to, but still without any mention of Briggs, this gentleman thought he could 

 not do less than state the grounds of that alteration himself. 



" Thus, upon the whole matter, it seems evident that Briggs, whether he had 

 thought of this improvement in the construction of logarithms, of making 1 

 the logarithm of the ratio 10 to 1 before Lord Napier or not (which is a secret 

 that could be known only to Napier himself), was the first person who com- 

 municated the idea of such an improvement to tlie world ; and that he did 

 this in his lectures to his auditors at Gresham College in the j'ear 1615, very 

 soon after his perusal of Napier's < Canon Mirificus Logarithmorum ' in the year 

 1614. He also mentioned it to Napier, both by letter in the same year and on his 

 first visit to him in Scotland in the summer of the year 1616, when Napier ap- 

 proved the idea, and said it had already occurred to himself, and that he had 

 determined to adopt it. It would therefore have been more candid in Lord 

 Napier to have told the world, in the second edition of this book, that Mr. 

 Briggs had mentioned this improvement to him, and that he had thereby been 

 confirmed in the resolution he had already talcen, before Mr. Briggs's com- 

 munication with him, to adopt it in that his second edition, as being better 

 fitted to the decimal notation of arithmetic which was in general use. Such 

 a declaration would have been but an act of justice to Mr. Briggs ; and the 

 not having made it cannot but incline its to suspect that Lord Napier was 

 desirous that the world should ascribe to him alone the merit of this very 

 useful improvement of the logarithms, as well as that of having originally in- 

 vented them ; though, if the having first communicated an invention to the 

 world be sufficient to entitle a man to the honour of having first invented it, 

 Mr. Briggs had the better title to be called the first inventor of this happy 

 improvement of logarithms." 



The above comments of Hutton's are all the more unfortunate because they 

 occur in a history that is generally accurate and truthful. It is needless 

 to say that, the facts being as above narrated, there is not the smallest 

 ground for imputing iinfairness to Napier ; but Hutton seems to have some- 

 how become possessed of such an idea and read all the facts by the light of it. 

 On the other hand, however, some of the accounts are scarcely fair to Briggs. 

 Mr, Mark Napier, in his ' Memoirs of John Napier,' has successfully refuted 

 Hutton ; but he has fallen into the opposite extreme of extravagantly eulogizing 

 Napier at the expense of Briggs, whom he reduces to the level of a mere 



