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Ordinary Meeting, March 11th, 1863. 
E. W. Binney, F.R.S., F.G.S., President, in the Chair. 
The Rev. Robert Harley, F.R.A.S., read the following 
communication “ On Bring’s Reduction of the Equation of 
the Fifth Degree to a Trinomial Form.” 
Mr. Ekman, the Honorary Librarian of this Society, has 
called my attention to a remarkable investigation on the 
theory of algebraic equations, bearing date 14th December, 
1786, by Erland Sam. Bring, who for some time was Pro- 
fessor of History in the University of Lund. That portion 
of Bring’s investigation which relates to equations of the 
fourth and fifth degrees has recently been republished by 
the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in their Proceedings 
for 1861, along with a Paper on the subject by Professor 
C. Hill. (See “ Ofversigt af Kongl. Vetenskaps-Akade- 
miens Forhandlingar. Adertonde A’rgangen.” 1861, pp. 
317—355.) 
Bring’s investigation was originally published as a “ Dis- 
putation,” but, sharing the fate of many other University 
disputations, it was suffered to drop into oblivion, and it 
remained there until about a year and a half ago, when 
Professor Hill discovered it and dragged it to light. The 
only complete copy of Bring’s Paper out of Sweden which 
my friend, Mr. Ekman, has been able to trace, exists, he 
informs me, in the library of the Observatory of Pulkova, in 
Russia. 
Bring succeeds in extending Tschirnhausen’s method of 
transformation so as to reduce the general equation of the 
fifth degree to a trinomial form by means of equations of 
inferior degrees. It is commonly supposed, I believe, that 
Proceedings— Lit. and Phil. Society— No. 10.— Session 1SG2-3. 
