But "before I enter exprefsly upon the fub]ec"t, I 

 mufttafce the liberty to animadvert upon a certain 

 Table, which, among other pieces afcribed to Era- 

 tofthenes, is printed at the -end of the beautiful 

 edition of Aratus published at Oxford in the year 

 1672, and is adorned with the title of -Kotnctvov 

 ILpcilo&ewgT. k contains all the odd numbers from 

 3 to 113 inclulive, distributed in little cells, all 

 the divifors of every Com polite number being placed 

 over it, in its proper cell, and the Prime numbers 

 .are diftinguifhed, fo far as the table goes, by hav- 

 ing no divifors placed over them. It hath probably 

 been copied either from a Greek comment upon the 

 Arithmetic of Nicomachus, preferved among the 

 manufcripts of Mr. Selden in the Bodleian Library, 

 in which, though the manufcript is now fo much 

 decayed as to be in mod places illegible, I find 

 plain vefliges of fuch a table *, which might be 

 more perfect 100 years ago, when the Oxford Ara- 

 tus was publifhed ; or elfe, from another comment, 

 tranflated from a Greek manufcript into Latin, 

 and publifhed in that language, by Camerarius, in 

 which a table of the very fame form occurs, ex- 

 tending from the number 3 to 109 inclulive. It 

 may fufficiently fkreen the editor of Aratus from 

 cenfure, that he had thefe authorities to publifh 

 this table as the Sieve of Eratoflhenes ; efpecially 

 as they are in fome meafure fupported by paflageS 

 of Nicomacrius himfelf. But the Sieve of Era- 

 tofthenes was quite another thing. 



* This manufcript feems to have contained the text of Ni- 

 comachus with Scholia in the margin. But the table^evidently 

 belongs to the Scholia, not to the text. 



Vol. LXIL IT u The 



