295-

HISTORY OF ALGEBRA.

TRACT 33.

Slusius, a canon of Liege, published in 1659, Mesolabum,seu ducc medice propor. per circulum ellips. vel hyperb.injinitis modis exhibit <e ; by which, any solid problem maybe constructed by infinite different ways. And in 1668, hegave a second edition of the same, with the addition of theanalysis, and a miscellaneous collection of curious and im-portant problems, relating to spirals, centres of gravity,maxima and minima, points of inflexion, and some Dio-pbantine problems ; all showing him deeply skilled in Alge-bra and Geometry.

There have been a great number of other writers and im-provers of Algebra, of which it may suffice slightly to mentionthe chief part, as in the following catalogue.

In 1619 several pieces of Van Cohen, or Ceulen, weretranslated out of Dutch into Latin, and published at Leydenby W. Snell ; among which are contained a particular trea-tise on surds, and his proportion of the circumference of acircle, to its diameter.

In 1621 Bachet published, in Greek and Latin, an edi-tion of JDiophantus, with many notes. And another editionof the same was published in 1670, with additions by Fer-mat.

In 1624 Bachet’s Problemes Piaisans et Delectables, beingcurious problems in mathematical recreations.

In 1634 Herigone published, at Paris, the first course ofmathematics, in 5 vols. 8vo ; in the 2d of which is containeda good treatise on Algebra; in which he uses the notationby small letters, introduced by the Algebra of Harriot,which was published three years before, though the rest ofit does not resemble that work, and one would suspect thatHerigone had not seen it. The whole of this piece bearsevident marks of originality and ingenuity. Besides -f- forplus , he uses x for minus , and | for equality , with severalother useful abbreviations and marks'of his own. In thenotation of powers, he does not repeat the letters like Har-riot, but subjoins the numeral exponents, to the letter,as Descartes did two years afterwards. And Herigone uses