An Incorrect Footnote and its Consequences

Abstract

IN following up Baltzer's erroneous reference concerning the “Demonstratio eliminationis Cramerianæ,” Mr. Muir, as described in his letter on p. 246, seems at first to have been singularly unlucky. For, on referring to the catalogue of Lord Crawford's mathematical library under “Mollweide,” although the work itself was not immediately forthcoming, there was a cross-reference to “Prasse, M. von,” under whose name the essay was duly catalogued. The Dun Echt copies, for there are two of them bound up in volumes of mathematical pamphlets, are copies of the original “Demonstratio,” in 8 folios, with the pages 4 to 15 numbered, and the last blank. In a gap on the title-page of one copy has been written “auct. Mauricius de Prasse,” apparently long ago, and in a German hand. But apart from this the last sentence of the first paragraph identifies the author as the writer of “Usus logarithmorum,” which bears the same Latin form of the name in print.