chnique_. He
is best known by his _Theorie analytique de la chaleur_ (Paris, 1822), in
which the Fourier series is used. The work here referred to is the _Analyse
des equations determinees_ (Paris, 1831).

[143] William George Horner (1786-1837) acquired a name for himself in
mathematics in a curious manner. He was not a university man nor was he a
mathematician of any standing. He taught school near Bristol and at Bath,
and seems to have stumbled upon his ingenious method for finding the
approximate roots of numerical higher equations, including as a special
case the extracting of the various roots of numbers. Davies Gilbert
presented the method to the Royal Society in 1819, and it was reprinted in
the _Ladies' Diary_ for 1838, and in the _Mathematician_ in 1843. The
method was original as far as Horner was concerned, but it is practically
identical with the one used by the Chinese algebraist Ch'in Chiu-shang, in
his _Su-shu Chiu-chang_ of 1247. But even Ch'in Chiu-shang can hardly be
called the discoverer of the method since it is merely the extension of a
process for root extracting that appeared in the _Chiu-chang Suan-shu_ of
the second century B. C.

[144] He afterwards edited Loftus's _Inland Revenue Officers' Manual_
(London, 1865). The two equations mentioned were x^3 - 2x = 5 and y^3 -
90y^2 + 2500y - 16,000 = 0, in which y = 30 - 10x. Hence each place of y is
the complement of the following place of x with respect to 9.

[145] Probably the John Power Hicks who wrote a memoir on T. H. Key,
London, 1893.

[146] Possibly the one who wrote on the quadrature of the circle in 1881.

[147] As it is. But what a pity that we have not 12 fingers, with
duodecimal fractions instead of decimals! We should then have 0.6 for 1/2,
0.4 for 1/3, 0.8 for 2/3, 0.3 for 1/4, 0.9 for 3/4, and 0.16 for 1/8,
instead of 0.5, 0.333+, 0.666+, 0.25, 0.75, and 0.125 as we now have
with our decimal system. In other words, the most frequently used
fractions in business would be much more easily represented on the
duodecimal scale than on the decimal scale that we now use.

[148] He wrote Hints for an _Essay on Anemology and Ombrology_ (London,
1839-40) and _The Music of the Eye_ (London, 1831).

[149] Brigham Young (1801-1877) was born at Whitingham, Vermont, and
entered the Mormon church in 1832. In 1840 he was sent as a missionary to
England. After the death of Joseph Smith he became president of the Mormons
(1847), leading the chu