The construction of the wonderful canon of logarithms

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1 30 Catalogue.
loj X 8J inches. They have not a blank leaf at the beginning, but have
on the recto of a leaf after the title-page an extract from the minutes
authorising the printing, followed by two leaves containing a list of the
members of the Club ; the Bannatyne Club having one hundred members
and the Maitland Club ninety. The foregoing differences make
the preliminary leaves six instead of four as in the collation.
The manuscript from which the work was published appears, from
the following passage in the Memoirs (pp. 419, 420), to be the only
one of Napier's papers which survives.
Napier left a mass of papers, including his mathematical treatises and notes,
all of which came into the possession of Robert as his father's literary executor.
When the house of Napier of Culcreugh was burnt, these papers perished,
with only two exceptions that I have been able to discover. The one
is the manuscript treatise on Alchemy by Robert Napier himself; but the
other is a far more valuable manuscript, being entitled, " The Baron of Merchiston,
his booke of Arithmeticke, and Algebra ; for Mr Henrie Briggs, Professor
of Geometric at Oxforde. " it is of great length, beautifully
written in the hand of his son, who mentions the fact, that it is copied from
such of his father's notes as the transcriber considered " orderlie sett doun."
The treatise on Alchemy is elsewhere stated (pp. 236, 237) to be
contained in a thin quarto volume closely written in the autograph of
Robert Napier, bearing the title " Mysterii aurei velleris Revelatio ; seu
analysis philosophica qua nucleus vera intentionis hermeticcs posteris Deum
timentibus manifestatur. Authore R. N." and the motto
" Orbis quicquid opum, vel kabet medicina salutis,
Omne Leo Geminis suppeditare potest."
In this connection the following entry may be mentioned which
occurs in the sale catalogue of the first portion of the library of the
late David Laing: " JLambye {/. B.) Revelation of the secret Spirit
{Alckymie) translated by R. N. E. {Robert Napier Edinburgensis T)
1623." The work sold for ^^7,
Libraries.
Adv. Ed.; etc.
2s. 6d.
I II.—Rabdologiae.