674 
Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
The proof need not be reproduced, as it is included in another to 
be immediately given. 
The writer having become acquainted with Sylvester’s early 
papers on the subject, takes the opportunity to withdraw, in 
favour of the latter, the claim implied in the title of the paper 
Muir, Th. (1877, Feb.). 
[Extension of a theorem in continuants, with an important appli- 
cation. Philos. Magazine (5), iii. pp. 360-366.] 
The theorem referred to being, as we have seen, a relation 
(of equality) between two continuants, it was natural to expect 
the existence of a relation between the two continued fractions 
corresponding to those continuants. This expectation led to an 
acquaintance with Bauer’s paper of 1872, and thereafter to the 
extension here intimated. 
The extension for the case of the 5th order is 
of 1874. 
S + 
b- 
-c 
c 2 r cyr b z 
r 
