Febbuaey 8, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



233 



the most important portraits of this great 

 mathematician and physicist. An effort has 

 also been made to acquire all the best 

 portraits of Leibnitz, Descartes, Euler, the 

 Bernoullis, Legendre, Monge, Cauchy and 

 others who stand out as particularly promi- 

 nent in the creation of pure mathematics. 

 The collection also includes the portraits of 

 many who have achieved success in the field 

 of applied mathematics, notably of men like 

 Laplace, Lagrange, Huyghens, Bailly and 



Many of these portraits have been repro- 

 duced in stereopticon slides for the use of the 

 department, and copies are supplied to schools 

 at cost. 



The collection of medals of mathematicians 

 includes more than a hundred pieces. The 

 following are among the most prominent 

 mathematicians represented: Fr. Arago, 

 Archimedes, Aristotle, Bailly, Betrand, Bon- 

 net, Tyeho Brahe, Cardan, Cassini, Cauchy, 

 Cavalieri, Copernicus, d'Alembert, De Moivre, 

 Descartes, Euler, Eermat, Galileo, Gassendi, 

 Gauss, Grandi, Halley Hutton, Huygens, 

 Kepler, Lacroix, Lagrange, Lalande, Laplace, 

 LeVerrier, Lobachevsky, Maurolicus, Monge, 

 NeudorfPer, Newton (seven medals), Pascal, 

 Pestalozzi, Poinsot, Poisson, Pythagoras, 

 Quetelet, Stevin, Thales, Viviani, Wolf, 

 Wren. 



The complete set of mathematical portrait 

 medallions by David d'Angers is included. 

 In addition to the portraits there are numer- 

 ous other medals of interest in the history of 

 mathematics, including the rare Metric Sys- 

 tem piece of 1872. 



Another interesting feature of the exhibit 

 is Professor Smith's collection of autographs 

 of mathematicians. On account of space, it 

 is possible to exhibit only a few of the several 

 thousand autographs in the library. The fol- 

 lowing are among the most interesting, and 

 are shown in one of the wall cases : Newton — 

 a two-page manuscript demonstration written 

 for one of his students at Cambridge; Leib- 

 nitz — an autograph letter relating to a series 

 of integrals; autograph letters of Sir William 

 Rowan Hamilton, Euler, Johann Bernoulli, 

 Mersenne (written about 1625), Maupertuis, 



Legendre, Wronski and Arago; documents 

 signed by Gauss, Laplace, and Lagrange; 

 autograph letters from Poncelet to Liouville, 

 Liouville to Dirichlet, and Arago to Poncelet. 

 Autograph letters of the following mathe- 

 maticians have been taken from the files so as 

 to be accessible, and are usually displayed: 

 in pure mathematics — Jacobi, Cayley, Syl- 

 vester, Kronecker, Cremona, Hachette, Poin- 

 care, Hermite, Clebsch, Cauchy, Chasles, Clif- 

 ford, Binet, Bezout, Monge; in astronomy — 

 Bode, Airy, Delambre, the three Cajssinis, 

 Maskeleyne, Flamsteed, Flammarion; in 

 physics — Ohm, Bessel; in the history of 

 mathematics — Montcula, Fuss, Libri, Kastner, 

 P. Tannery, M. Cantor. 



In the line of Newtoniana there are five 

 framed portraits of Newton, as follows : 

 Mezzotint by Simon, after Thornhill; line 

 engraving by George Vertue, after Vander- 

 bank ; line engraving by Houbraken, after Sir 

 G. Kneller; lithograph by G. B. Black, after 

 Wm. Gandy; line engraving by E. Scriven, 

 after Vanderbank. There are seven medals 

 of Newton, representing the work of Croker 

 (bronze and silver), Dassier, Koettiers, and 

 Petit (two specimens), besides one without 

 the artist's name. The Newton manuscript 

 was long in the library of Professor Jacoli, 

 at Venice. It consists of a physical demon- 

 stration written by Newton at Cambridge, for 

 an Italian student, c. 1700. The impression 

 of Newton's Galileo seal is from the original 

 which was recently presented to the South 

 Kensington Museum. The bust of Newton 

 is after the original by Eoubillac. The un- 

 framed portraits, numbering over one hun- 

 dred, include specimens of the work of the 

 following engravers : Phillibrown, Zeelander, 

 Lips, Eomney, Fry, Rivers, Scott, Tardieu, 

 Ridley, Goldar, Cars, Laderer, Le Coeur, Free- 

 man, Seeman, Krauss, Ravenet, Guadagnini, 

 Holl, MeGahey, Conquy, Zuliani, Cooke, Le 

 Keux, Normand, Landon, Baumann, Wedg- 

 wood, Dupin, Smith, Edwards, Desrochers, 

 Weber and others. 



There are also displayed a number of books 

 and curios illustrating certain steps in the 

 history or the teaching of mathematics. 

 These include a Babylonian cylinder with 



