168 REPORT— 1873. 



them (very little more remains to be done) after the publication of the 

 elliptic functions, when they will probably be communicated to one of 

 the learned societies. The table of powers by the reporter, mentioned in 

 § 3, art. 5, is entirely completed, except for the final verification by differ- 

 ences, which is in progress ; and the printing will be commenced very shortly ; 

 but as it is intended to prefix to it a list of constants, with historical notices 

 of the calculation of each, the publication may be somewhat delayed. 



Art. 7. Any one who studies the Keport attentively cannot faU to notice 

 differences of modes of description in it. These are only verbal, and will be 

 seen to be unavoidable when it is considered that, as a rule, the account of 

 each book was written by itself on a separate piece of paper, and that not 

 till aU had been arranged, and the Report was in print, was it easy to com- 

 pare the descriptions of the same table occumng in different works, and 

 therefore written under different circumstances. Very few of these " dis- 

 crepancies " have been removed, partly because, as each description was cor- 

 rect, it seemed scarcely worth while to make alterations for the sake of a 

 fictitious uniformity, and partly because we made it a rule that, a descrip- 

 tion having been written in the presence of the book, it ought not to be 

 altered when the book was absent. Slight differences of style and manner 

 are inevitable in a work the performance of which has extended over the 

 space of two years, as experience must always continually modify to some 

 extent both opinions and modes of thought and expression ; of course, if the 

 work could be done over again with the experience already obtained, the 

 descriptions would be more uniform. 



Art. 8. An objection might be made on the ground that descriptions are given 

 of some very minor works, which have not even the bibliographical interest 

 due to age. In answer to this it is to be noted (1) that it is sometimes as 

 important to know that a book does not contain any thing of value as to know 

 what is in it if it does, and that the reader alone should be left to decide 

 what is and what is not valuable ; and (2) that no book is so insignificant 

 that in the future a correct account of its contents will not be of value. 

 " The most worthless book of a bygone day is a record worthy of preserva- 

 tion. Like a telescopic star, its obscurity may render it unavailable for 

 most purposes ; but it serves, in hands which know how to use it, to deter- 

 mine the places of more important bodies " (De Morgan, ' Arithmetical 

 Books,' page ii). Although the primary object of the Report is utility in the 

 present, still it is not detsirable to entirely forget the wants of the future. 

 The difficulty the historian of science meets with consists not so much in 

 getting a sight of the books the existence of which he knows, as in finding 

 out the names of the second- and third-rate authors of the period he is con- 

 cerned with. Bibliographies grow more valuable as they increase in age ; 

 and it may be predicted with confidence, that long after every vestige of 

 claim to represent the " state of science " has passed away from this Report, 

 the list of names in § 5 wiU be consulted as a useful record of nineteenth- 

 century authors of tables. It might be thought that a less detailed descrip- 

 tion of unimportant books would sufiice ; but it is only necessary to point 

 out in reply, that work, unless done thoroughly, had better be left alone. 

 An account of all the tables in a book is absolute, whereas an account only 

 of those that seem to the writer worth notice is relative. Want of thorough- 

 ness is the thing most to be dreaded in all work of a bibliographical, his- 

 torical, or descriptive nature. It is this want that renders all but valueless 

 the greater part of seventeenth and eighteenth-centuiy writings of this 

 class ; and any one who performs such work in an incomplete or slovenly 



