no 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 161. 



mated, but it has been put at not less than 

 $20,000 by a widely known newspaper. 



In the bureau from which it comes per- 

 haps two or three copies of such a table 

 might be used, but anybody who knows 

 anything about the subject knows that useful 

 ta,bles of logarithms include from four to 

 seven places. The number of problems in 

 which a table of more than seven places 

 would be used is extremely small, and all 

 extension of figures over what are actually 

 used are a nuisance and a real hindrance. 

 That the United States government should 

 suddenly print for free distribution sev- 

 eral thousands of copies of this compila- 

 tion must create, among those Avho under- 

 stand, a strong suspicion of a dearth of 

 other printable material. 



A little examination of the introductory 

 pages of this extraordinary work will in- 

 tensify the wonder which its appearance 

 produces. Some space is devoted to the 

 consideration of the elements of trigo- 

 nometry, assuming that young people who 

 are ignorant of that subject will take to 

 ten-place logarithms from the start. 



Mathematicians will be interested and 

 amused by this elementary work, which 

 would properly astonish a high school pupil 

 of the present day. Definitions of the 

 trigonometric functions are quite erroneous 

 and quite inconsistent with accompanying 

 statements. Some novel mathematical prin- 

 ciples are laid down, which go far to make 

 the work worthy of preservation. But all 

 of this goes for nothing at present, as no 

 table of logarithmic sines, cosines, etc., ap- 

 pears in the present volume, and it is greatly 

 to be feared that a new administration with 



less decided antiquarian tendencies may in- 

 sist on the paramount importance of papers 

 on hydrography, magnetism, geodesy and 

 things of that sort, and thus defer the com- 

 pletion of this table for another hundred 

 years. 



The past is secure, however, and the ten- 

 place 'logarithmorum vulgarium ' cannot be 

 taken from us, unless, indeed, the govern- 

 ment calls in ' for redemption ' the entire 

 issue. 



The printed tables show that they have 

 been prepared for the select few, meaning 

 the very select few who are ever likely to 

 be found making use of them. Their ar- 

 rangement might have been worse, but only 

 by printing the numbers in one annual re- 

 port and their logarithms in the next. No 

 one will deny this who looks at the two 

 broad quarto pages and tries to carry the line 

 of a number, found only at the extreme 

 left, across both pages to the corresponding 

 logarithm, without being ' shunted off.' 

 This difficulty is greatly enhanced by a gap 

 of about three inches of blank paper diversi- 

 fied with binding stitches, over which one 

 is expected to carry one's eye undeviatinglj'. 

 Still further trouble comes from the absence 

 of all grouping in the individual numbers. 

 Seven figures, and ten figures, where there 

 are ten, are packed up together, while in 

 any well arranged table they are alwaj'S 

 grouped in blocks of two, three or four, so 

 as to catch the eye readily and to be the 

 more surely carried correctly in the head 

 until written down. Every compiler knows 

 how this matter of grouping and spacing 

 may make the difference between a perfect 

 table and one which is absolutely unusable. 



