1903 - 4 .] Dr Muir on the Theory of Continuants. 153 
the only change being the writing of , j 8 2 , . . . for - cos 2 a , 
- cos 2 /?, . . . 
Worpitzky (1865, April). 
[Untersuchungen iiber die Entwickelung der monodromen 
und monogenen Functionen durch Kettenbriiche. (Sch. 
Progr.) 39 pp., Berlin.] 
Of the six sections into which the paper giving the results of 
Worpitzky ’s painstaking investigation is divided it is only the 
first headed “Fundamentalrelationen ” which concerns us, these 
relations being nothing else than what we should now call “ pro- 
perties of continuants.” 
He takes his continued fraction in the same form as Schlafli, 
viz., 
1 + + * * * 
I a n 
+ T’ 
showing of course that it equals 
H 5 
where 
1 
1 
- a K 
1 
1 . . 
N«.» = 
— a K _ j 
1 . . 
1 1 
- a n 1 
