[ 3 2 9 ] 
But before I enter exprefsly upon the fubjedl, I 
muft take 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 publilhed at Oxford in the year 
1672, and is adorned with the title of Kortavov 
Epcilo&evxg. It contains all the odd numbers from 
3 to 1 13 inclufive, diftributed in little cells, all 
the divifors of every Compofite number being placed 
over it, in its proper cell, and the Prime numbers 
are diftinguilhed, 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 moft places illegible, I find 
plain vefliges of fuch a table *, which might be 
more perfect 100 years ago, when the Oxford Ara- 
tus was publilhed ; 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 inclufive. It 
may fufficiently Ikreen the editor of Aratus from 
cenfure, that he had thefe authorities to publifh 
this table as the Sieve of Eratofthenes ; efpecially 
as they are in fome meafure fupported by paffages 
of Nicomachus himfelf. But the Sieve* of Era- 
tofthenes was quite another thing. 
* This manufcript feems to have contained the text of Mi- 
eomachus with Scholia in the margin. But the table evidently 
belongs to the Scholia, not to the text. 
Vol. LXII. U u The 
