1802.] 
87. This paragraph we read in the 
editions of 1713 and 1714; and though it 
has been fuppreffed in the edition of 
1726, the defenders of Leibnitz will 
always have it in their power to appeal 
to the teftimony and the confcience of 
Newton. . 
88. It appears that Leibnitz might 
have remained im quiet poffeffion of part 
of the honour redounding from the dif= 
covery of the new calculus, if he had 
done more juaftice to Newton. In fome 
letters which he had written to perfons in 
England, he claimed the invention ex- 
elufively, which drew forth fome very 
difagreeable remarks upon the prior rights 
of Newton. In 1708, Keill* publifhed, 
in the Philofophical Tranfactions, a paper 
in which he exprefsly affirmed, that New- 
ton was the firlt inventor of the method 
of fluxions, and that Leibnitz, when he 
publithed it in the Ada Eruditorum of 
Leipfick, had only changed the name and 
the notation. 
89. Leibnitz, infulted by this charge of 
plagiarilm, demanded, in a letter to the 
Secretary of the Royal Society of London, 
that Keill fhould retraét what he had ad- 
vanced. Keill, inftead of this, returned 
for anfwer a long letter, in which he 
{tated ali the proofs which he had, to 
fhow, not only that Newton had pre- 
ceded Leibnitz, but alfo that he had given 
the German geometrician fo many {pe- 
cimens of his calculus, that it could not 
efcape a man even of ordinary underfland- 
ing. The Royal Society of London ap- 
pointed a Committee to confult the ori- 
ginal papers. ‘They gave no opinion on 
the merits of the cafe; but they refolved 
that Keill had not injured Leibnitz, by 
affirming that Newton was the firft in- 
ventor of the method of fluxions. 
go. The controverly, however, was 
continued. A common friend of Newton 
aad Leibnitz tried to bring them to a 
mutual explanation. But this attempt 
only ferved to increafe their ill-humour ; 
Leibnitz perfifting in his denial of New- 
ton’s right of priority ; and Newton re- 
fufing to Leibnitz what he had formerly 
conceded tohim. At laft, the death of 
Leibnitz put an end to the difpute. 
* John Keill, M.D. Profeffor of Aftro- 
nomy in Oxford, and Member of the Royal 
Society of London, was a native of Scotland, 
and died in 1721, in the soth year of his 
age. The works of that able man are in 
very great eftimation among the learned. 
His brother, James Keill, M.D. was alfo 
a good mathematician. Tranflator. 
Account of a Mode of Killing Seals, OS 
Cy & 
91. It is now generally agreed, every 
where but in England, that Newton and 
Leibnitz attained the-fame object by the 
force of their genius, but by purfuing 
different methods ; Newton by regarding 
fluxions as the fimple proportions of nat{- 
cent and evanefcent quantities; and 
Leibnitz, by confidering that, in a feries 
of quantities increafing or decreafing, the 
difference between the two confecutive 
terms may become infinitely fmall, that 
is, lefs than any finite affignable magni- 
tude. 
92. If the method of fluxions be the 
moft luminous, if it has the merit of an- 
ticipating the objections which may be 
made againft different orders of infinitely 
{mall quantities ; the differential calculus 
poflefles the advantage of conducting us 
to the fame refults bya lefs difficult path. 
(Alvebra tobe continued.) 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
ACCOUNT of @ MODE of KILLING SEALS. 
N the fouth fide of the ifle of Zante, 
is a village named Agala. Its in- 
habitants, in addition to the agricultura! 
labors which are common to them with 
the other iflanders, avail themfelves of their 
fituation to carry on the feal-fifhery. 
They live at the diftance of only two 
miles from the fea, which, neverthelefs, 
they cannot reach without deicegding 
precipices, of which the bare. afpeé is 
fufficient to infpire terror, Thofe moun- 
taineers, however, having acquired intre- 
pidity from habit, defcend to the fea fide 
with aftonithing agility, only fupporting 
themfelves by a thick rope faftened ta 
a tree or the point of a reck. 
At the water-edge, the rocks that bor- 
der the fea are full of caverns, into which 
the feals retire to fleep, and to bring fo: th 
their young. ‘To penetrate into thefe 
caverns, it is neceflary for the adventurer 
to wade in the water almoft chin-deep, 
taking care to hold aloft the piftel with 
which he intends to fhoot his game. If 
the feal happen to be afleep at the time, 
fuccefS is certain: but, if awake, at the 
approach of his enemy he violently darts 
into the water ; in which cafe the greatetk 
dexterity is requifite to hit him in the 
head, the only place where the fhot is more 
tal: in any other part, the wound would 
be but flight, and infufficient to prevent 
his efcape. 
When the mountaineer has killed the 
feal, he flays him in the cavern, and 
takes away only the fkin and fat, leavin 
all the selt ef the animal to be devoured by 
the 
