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transmitting the whole of the messages which had crossed 
the Atlantic from either side. To him, therefore, the merit 
of having given a temporary success to the Atlantic tele- 
graph exclusively belongs. 
Mr. "J\ T. Wilkinson, F.R.A.S., called the attention of 
the meeting to the existence of a very valuable manuscript in 
the Chetham Library, which he had been permitted to copy. 
It contains nearly forty letters on various mathematical 
subjects, written between “April 29th, 1774,” and “Septem- 
ber 27th, 1777,” by the Rev. John Lawson, B.D., and the 
Rev. Charles Wildbore, M.A., editor of the Gentleman' s 
Dial']). Several of the earlier letters contain a Philological 
and Mathematical discussion on Porisms, as known to 
Fermat, Halley, and others. In the third and fourth letters, 
Mr. Jeremiah Ainsworth, of Manchester, is alluded to as an 
able Geometer. The fifteenth letter contains a long and 
interesting discussion on Porisms, which appears to have 
been intended for the perusal of Earl Stanhope, since he says 
that “ perhaps it may not displease his ( Dr. Simsons ) noble 
editor to find another person’s opinion coinciding with the 
Doctor’s.” This dissertation was written before the publica- 
tion of Dr. Simson’s Opera Posthuma, and occupies ten 
closely-written pages of manuscript. The seventeenth letter 
announces the publication of Mr. Lawson’s ^'■Geometrical 
Analysis of the Ancients;" and Mr. Ainsworth is afterwards 
stated to have solved all the geometrical questions appended 
to that able work in a “very ingenious manner.” Most 
of the remaining letters are occupied with the discussion of 
various problems which then attracted the attention of mathe- 
maticians. The anecdotes respecting the contemporaries of 
the writers are not only amusing, but instructive ; and the 
historical bearings of the whole series upon the Mathematical 
Literature of the period are neither few nor unimportant. 
Towards the close of the correspondence, the writings of 
Dr. Henry Clarke, another Manchester mathematician, are 
mentioned both for approbation and correction. Mr. Wil- 
kinson considered that the jiublication of the letters would 
