Solutions to Important Problems. 



129 



work which he published a few years thereafter — in 1837 or 1838 

 — he not only adopted my arguments and views, but put them 

 forth as his own without the slightest acknowledgement, com- 

 pressing my work of 250 pages into twelve or thirteen of his 

 own. I did not discover the literary piracy till I was a^ain in 

 the middle of the Pacific, in 1839, when I happened to borrow 

 the man's book from the captain. It was a disgraceful transac- 

 tion, far more so indeed than if it had been merely a theft of so 

 much property ; for I consider my discovery of the way in which 

 America was originally discovered and settled by the Polynesians, 

 and my identification of the Indo-Americans with the Polynesians 

 as one of the greatest literary discoveries of the age. I shall not 

 name the offender at present, but I shall certainly do so at some 

 future time. 



Abt. VIII. — Improved Solutions to Important Problems in Trigo- 

 nometrical Surveying. By Martin Gardiner, Us g., C.E., Mem- 

 ber of the Mathematical Society of London. 



[Read before the Society, 6th October, 1869] 



Foub points L, M, N, O, being in a straight line, and visible 

 from one point P ; to determine the distance x between the 

 middle points M, N, when the distances L M=a, N 0=b, and 



