106 Mr J. W. L. Glaisher on the Form of the Cells of Bees. 



covery of the error in the logarithmic table is a fiction, the 

 method Koenig employed never having transpired, so that it is 

 quite as likely as not that he never used logarithms at all. 



The sentence about the pleasure of the mathematicians is no 

 doubt merely rhetorical; but few persons who have any knowledge 

 at all of the history of science will be able to read without a smile 

 the grave statement that, more than half a century after the pub- 

 lication of the Principia, mathematicians were delighted at their 

 science having given a proof of its utility by the solution of a 

 simple geometrical question. 



Before entering into further detail with regard to the history 

 of the problem of the bee-cell, which presents several other 

 points besides those already mentioned, it is proper to state that 

 the subject was treated, in very much the same way as in this 

 paper, by the late Robert Leslie Ellis, in a short memoir which 

 was first published after his death in the volume of his collected 

 writings (edited by Walton, Cambridge, 1863), pp. 353-357. 

 Ellis's remarks were called forth by Lord Brougham's essay on 

 the subject (which will be noticed further on and seen to be very 

 inaccurate); and he has pointed out that the values 109° 28' 

 and 70° 32' were not the result of measurement ; he has also 

 corrected Lord Brougham on another point (viz. about Bosco- 

 vich), which will be referred to presently. The former miscon- 

 ception Ellis speaks of as being "still current and repeated by 

 every writer or nearly so on the subject ;" and he refers to a 

 further inaccuracy occurring in Dr. Carpenter's ' Physiology '*. 

 As, however, Ellis's paper occupies only a small portion of the 

 ground covered by the present communication, it will be conve- 

 nient for the sake of completeness to give the whole account 

 here as if it had not been written ; but it must be understood 

 that the portion relating to Maraldi is exhaustively treated by 

 himf. Maraldi's memoir is entitled "Observations sur les 

 Abeilles," and occupies pp. 299-334 of the Memoirs of the 

 French Academy for 1712 (Paris, 1714)J. The result of the 

 measurements is given on p. 309 in the following words : — 



* The passage in question (' Human Physiology,' 3rd edit. 1856, p. 251) 

 concludes with the words, " the bees being thus proved to be right and the 

 mathematician wrong." Dr. Carpenter refers to Lord Brougham (vide 

 infra), from whose essay he takes the account, and who is responsible for 

 all except the statement that he (Lord Brougham) took into account cer- 

 tain small quantities that had been previously neglected, and thus showed 

 that the agreement of theory with observation was perfect. 



t It should be mentioned that Ellis adds some remarks on the construc- 

 tion of the cells which are not connected with the subject of the present 

 paper. 



X But there are different editions; in another edition (Paris, 1/31 

 before me the memoir occupies pp. 297-331, and the spelling and accen- 

 tuation are more modernized ; the quotations are from pp. 307 and 309. 



