The construction of the wonderful canon of logarithms

—
From RABDOLOGIM, Book I.
Notes. 89
Chapter IV.
Note on Decimal Arithmetic.
But if these fractions be unsatisfactory which have different denominators,
owing to the difficulty of working with them, and those give
more satisfaction whose denominators are always tenths,
The preceding
example :—division
of 861094 by
432-
118
141
402
429
86i094{i993iJI
432
64
I 36
31 6
118,000
141
402
429
861094,000(1993,273
432
hundredths, thousandths, &c., which fractions that learned
mathematician, "AVwow Sievin, in his Decimal Arithmetic
denotes thus —(7j, (2J,
^3), naming them firsts, seconds,
thirds : since there is the same facility in working with these
fractions as with whole numbers, you will be able after completing
the ordinary division, and adding a period or comma,
as in the margin, to add to the dividend or to the remainder
one cypher to obtain tenths, two for hundredths, three for
thousandths, or more afterwards as required : and with these
you will be able to proceed with the working as above. For
instance, in the preceding example, here repeated, to which
we have added three cyphers, the quotient will become
1993.273, which signifies 1993 units and 273 thousandth parts
1296
864
3024
I 296
or iVtrti or, according to Stevzn, 1993,2 7 3
: further the last
remainder, 64, is neglected in this decimal arithmetic because
it is of small value, and similarly in like examples.
Simon Stevin, to whom Napier here refers, was bom at Bruges in
1548, and died at The Hague in 1620. He published various mathematical
works in Dutch. The Tract on Decimal Arithmetic, which
introduced the idea of decimal fractions and a notation for them, was
published in 1585 in Dutch, under the title of 'De Thiende,' and in
the same year in French, under the title of ' La Disme.'
We find Briggs, in his Remarks on '
the Appendix,' while sometimes
employing the point, also using the notation 2 5118865 for 2^^-^^^^^,
distinguishing the fractional part by retaining the line separating the
numerator and denominator, but omitting the latter. The form
2|5ii886s has also been used. If we take any number such as
94TWTnT' *h^ following will give an idea of some of the different
notations employed at various times :
_ _ ©0000
940I030O050; 94
I 305;
941305; 941305 94|£305
M
94- 1305-
Notwithstanding