[82 ] 
But I return to our Author, who employs the re- 
maining Part of his Difcourfe in treating of the Anti- 
quity and Ufe of the Arabian or Indian Figures. 
And here he has given a very particular and accurate 
Account of the different Opinions of feveral Writers 
upon this Subjed, but more efpecially of what Kircher 
and Dr. Wallis have faid concerning it. The former 
of whom, as he obferves, ventures to fix the precife 
Time, when the Europeans learned them of the 
Arabians ; which was occafioned by the Affembly 
called together by Alphonfus King of Ca/tile , for fet- 
tling the Ajlronomical Tables-, at which feme Moors 
or Arabians were prefent. Now in thofe Tables, 
which were finifhed and publifhed in the Year 1252, 
the Numbers are expreffed in thefe Characters. Kir- 
cher thinks likewife, that the Arabians firft borrowed 
them from the Indians about the Year 900; when, 
having fubdued Terjia , Carmania , and the Coaft of 
India , they opened a Commerce with that Country. 
On the contrary, Dr. Wallis , as our Author remarks, 
has (hewn, that thefe Figures were known to the 
Europeans , and ufed by them in Books of Agro- 
nomy and Arithmetic, long before the Time affigned 
by Kircher. But, as Dr. Wallis fufpeCts, that the 
Characters found in fome old Editions of Boethius 
c De Geometria , very like the Arabian Figures, are 
different from the Original, or other antient Manu- 
feripts of that Work 5 our Author acquaints us, that 
he himfelf faw in the public Library of the Uni- 
verfity at Altorf a Copy of it, which by the Form 
of the Letters appeared to him to have been writ- 
ten in the Eighth or Ninth Century; and that both 
the Shape and Situation of the numeral Characters 
were 
