AUGUST 18, 1899. ] 
A curious and, in my judgment, a 
seriously instructive example of the readi- 
ness with which people accept newspaper 
science is found in the attempt made a year 
or two ago to fix the value of the ratio of the 
circumference to the diameter of a circle by 
legislative enactment. This incident may 
be familiar to some of you, but it is en- 
tirely worthy of consideration by those to 
whom is entrusted a large share of the in- 
struction in exact science in American col- 
leges. The legislative body involved was 
not one of a State south of Mason and 
Dixon’s line nor west of the Mississippi 
River. It was a body chosen by the people 
of one of the greater States of the Union-— 
one deservedly enjoying considerable dis- 
tinction, especially in literary circles, on 
account of the eminent men it has produced, 
and also for the excellence of its educational 
institutions. In this Legislature, House, 
Bill No. 246 was entitled ‘A Bill for an 
Act introducing a New Mathematical 
Truth,’ * * * which truth, in the second 
section of said bill, turns out to be that the 
circumference of a circle is just 31 times 
its diameter. In the capital of the State 
is published a daily morning paper of un- 
usual excellence. Not generally given to 
sensationalism, its contents are usually 
clean and wholesome, its news well col- 
lected and arranged, and even a single 
copy gives the impression that it is an ex- 
ample of the better phases of journalism. 
Yet this paper devoted more than two 
columns of its first page to an exploitation 
of this most important discovery, which 
had been made by a physician living in an 
obscure corner of the State. It was an- 
nounced that the laws of the quadrature 
had been copyrighted and that this news- 
paper was allowed to be the first to make 
them public, this privilege being, without 
doubt, the bait which caught the uninformed 
editor. Some measure of his credulity may 
be found in his sober declaration that the 
“SCIENCE. 
197 
circle-squarer’s demonstration had been ac- 
cepted by all eminent mathematicians ; that 
the American Mathematical Journal, the 
highest authority in the country, had has- 
tened to publish it, and this publication 
instantly attracted the attention of the 
scientific journals in Paris, the editors of 
which had eagerly sought contributions 
from the author of the discovery. The 
solution had been copyrighted in the United 
States and in England, Germany, Belgium, 
France, Austria, Italy and Spain. At 
Washington it had won the support of the 
professors of the National Astronomical Ob- 
servatory, Professor Asaph Hall, ‘ whose 
fame was secure with the discovery of the 
moons of Mars’ being specially delighted 
with it and finding in it a complete ex- 
planation of a hitherto unexplainable 
anomaly in the earth’s motion. The desk 
of the discoverer was full of letters from 
leading mathematicians in Europe and 
America, and one from his agent in London 
proved that his demonstration had been 
shown to Tyndall and Huxley, who warmly 
endorsed its accuracy. Professors in Ann 
Arbor and from Johns Hopkins University 
had seen the demonstration and declared 
it perfect. I leave to the guardians of the 
name and fame of these institutions, and to 
others referred to, the task of ascertaining 
just what lineal descendant of Ananias was 
at that time on the editorial staff of this 
journal, but the actual disposition of the 
bill by the legislative body is a matter of 
much interest. When introduced, it was 
taken humorously by the Speaker of the 
House, who happened to be a graduate of a 
widely known educational institution, and 
he ordered its reference to the Committee 
on Swamp Lands. Two days later, how- 
ever, the great discoverer had a hearing 
before the State Superintendent of Public 
Schools and the Committee on Education, 
who at once endorsed the solution; the 
Committee on Canals and Swamp Lands 
