166 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LI. No. 1311 



"Walter H. Snell, formerly of the Office of 

 IriTestigations in Forest Pathology of the 

 Department of Agriculture, has accepted an 

 instructorship in the same department. 



Professor A. K. Peitersen, who for the 

 past seven years has been assistant professor 

 of botany and assistant botanist of the experi- 

 ment station, of the University of Vermont, 

 has gone to Fort Collins, Colorado, where he 

 has been elected professor of botany. 



Professor Swale Vincent, who has occii- 

 pied the chair of physiology at the University 

 of Manitoba (Winnipeg) since 1904, has been 

 appointed professor of physiology in the Uni- 

 versity of London (Middlesex Hospital). He 

 will probably take up his duties in Loudon at 

 the beginning of May. 



Dr. Harold Pringle, lecturer on histology 

 and assistant in physiology in the University 

 of Edinburgh, has been appointed professor 

 of physiology in Trinity College, Dublin, 

 succeeding the late Sir Henry Thompson. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



FURTHER HISTORY OF THE CALCULUS 



To THE Editor of Science: Please make a 

 correction of my college address to Eosb 

 Polytechnic Institute, in the paper on " The 

 Early History of Calculus," in Science for 

 July 11. The error is due perhaps to the fact 

 that only my name was signed to the article. 



The quotation from the " Encyclopedia 

 Britannica" should be stated as from the 

 ninth edition, since it has been omitted in 

 the eleventh. The historical part of the 

 article "Inf. Cal." is entirely changed in the 

 last edition to one of still stronger German 

 bias. It makes the statement, for example, 

 that Leibniz did not meet Collins, nor see the 

 tract " De analysi per aequationen . . ." on 

 his first visit to London in 1673. No verifi- 

 cation of this statement is offered. English 

 histories and documents have it the other 

 way with regard to Collins. 



Evidence of the possible duplicity of Collina 

 which indicates that he was an agent under 

 Oldenberg as early as 1669, appears in the 

 rewritten history. To quote: 



The tract "De analysi per aequationen ..." 

 was sent by Newton to Barrow, wlio sent it to 

 John Collins with a request that it might be made 

 known. One way of making it known would have 

 been to print it in the Philosophical Transactions 

 of the Eoyal Society, but this course was not 

 adopted. Collins made a copy of the tract and 

 sent it to Lord Brouucier, but neither of them 

 brought it before the Eoyal Society. ... In 1680 

 Collins sought the assistance of the Eoyal Society 

 for the publication of the tract and this was 

 granted in 1682, yet it remained unpublished. The 

 reason is unknown. . . . 



The usual history is that Collins was the 

 active agent in soliciting the tract " to make it 

 known." Also, Oldenberg was secretary of the 

 Eoyal Society, and published the Transac- 

 tions for his private profit, without supervis- 

 ion from the society. The relations of these 

 two men were intimate. The tract was prob- 

 ably brought directly to Oldenberg — he has 

 shown that he had knowledge of it — and that 

 he did not act upon it in his official capacity 

 is evidence of conspiracy to suppress it. When 

 both were urging Newton, as already cited, to 

 undertake " for the honor of England," a cor- 

 respondence which Leibnitz had planned, it 

 was at that time within their power to promote 

 greater honor to England by publishing the 

 tract in the Transactions. In reference to the 

 threatened publication in 1680, the death of 

 Oldenberg about two years before, had left 

 Collins without his principal, if Oldenberg 

 were such, and that transaction might have 

 been a shrewd move on Collins' part to retain 

 his honorarimns through Leibniz. At least 

 some cause delayed Leibniz seven years in the 

 publication of his calculus, already prepared, 

 while it was put in in the hands of the printer 

 immediately after the death of Collins. 



There is reason to believe that Leibniz had 

 information of matters transpiring in England 

 before he left Germany. It is difficult to ex- 

 plain otherwise the grandiloquent announce- 

 ment of wonderful discoveries of new meth- 

 ods in mathematics, which heralded his visit 

 to Paris in 1672, with no work to show, and 

 with admittedly inferior mathematical knowl- 

 edge for such work. The London exposure by 



