on some early Logarithmic Tables, 503 



I have therefore hopes of being able to make ray list nearly- 

 complete. A good deal of research and trouble has been devoted 

 to the subject by the German bibliographers ; but, for want of the 

 direct evidence derived from inspection of the books (the ma- 

 jority being English, and no doubt even less common in Ger- 

 many than here), they have been frequently led into error by the 

 inaccurate descriptions given in the second-hand sources whence 

 they have beeu obliged to derive their information. There is no 

 account which is not very inaccurate in its details. I will only 

 refer here to one error that is universal. Hutton says that on 

 Briggs^s return to London in 1617 "he printed the first thou- 

 sand logarithms to eight places of figures, besides the index, 

 under the title of Logarithmorum Chilias Prima." This is the 

 first publication of Briggian logarithms, and is therefore of 

 historical importance ; but no one seems to have seen the 

 book itself; and Hutton^s statement has been quoted by every 

 subsequent writer without verification. There is, however, a copy 

 in the British Museum; and the Table contains the logarithms 

 of the first thousand numbers to fourteen decimals. The whole 

 forms a small octavo tract of sixteen pages, and has neither 

 author^s nauie, place, nor date"^. There is a brief preface, con- 

 taining the often quoted remark that it is to be hoped that Na- 

 pier^s posthumous work will explain why the logarithms are dif- 

 ferent from those in the Canon Mir ificus ] and it concludes with 

 the motto "In tenui, sed non tenuis fructusve laborve.^^ Dodson 

 does not mention this tract. Ward, in his ' Lives of the Pro- 

 fessors of Gresharn College,^ 1740, incorrectly says that it was 

 printed in 161 7^ as appears by the titlepage. Hutton^s account 

 is inaccurate as noted above ; and De Morgan never saw the 

 book and gives no account, while the foreign bibliographers 

 rarely mention it. There has also been some difficulty about 

 the date ; the facts are : — that Sir Henry Bourchier wrote on Dec. 

 6, 1617, to Dr. Ushert, "Our kind friend, Mr. Briggs, hath 

 lately published a supplement to the most excellent Tables of 

 logarithuis, which I presume he has sent to you •/' but as Na- 

 pier^s posthumous works are spoken of in the preface, while his 

 death did not take place till Aprd 3, 1618, it has been supposed 

 that some incomplete copies may have been circulated in 1617, 

 but that the real date of publication was 1618. Ward notices 

 the difficulty; and Hutton regarded 1618 as the true date; 

 Bogg also assigns 1618. Nearly all the writers before Hutton 

 either knew nothing about the book, or confounded it with 



* No doubt one reason why the tract has been seen by so few is that in 

 the Museum Catalogue, instead of being entered under " Brigss," 1617, 

 it appears only under " Logarithms/' with the date " [1695?], 



t Quoted by Ward, ' Lives of the Gresharn Professors,' p. 122. 



