The construction of the wonderful canon of logarithms

xiv
Introduction.
poly of the system was granted under the privy seal on
22d June 1598. As Archibald Napier was quite a young
man at the time, it is most probable the system was the
result of experiments made by his father and grandfather.
About 1603, the Lennox, where Napier held large
possessions, was devastated in the conflict between the
chief of Macgregor and Colquhoun of Luss, known as
the raid of Glenfruin. The chief was entrapped by
Argyll, tried, and condemned to death. On the jury
which condemned him sat John Napier. The Macgregors,
driven to desperation, became broken men, and
Napier's lands no doubt suffered from their inroads, as we
find him on 24th December i6ii entering into a contract
for mutual protection with James Campbell of Lawers,
Colin
Campbell of Aberuchill, and John Campbell, their
brother-german.
To the critical events of 1588 which, as we have already
seen, drew Napier into public life, is due the appearance
in English of A plaine discovery,' already mentioned.
'
The treatise was intended to have been written in
Latin, but, owing to the events above referred to, he
was, as he says, ' constrained of compassion, leaving the
Latin to haste out in English the present work almost
unripe.' It was published in 159^. A revised edition
appeared in 161 1, wherein he still expressed his intention
of rewriting it
in Latin, but this was never accomplished.
Mathematics, as well as theology, must have occupied
Napier's attention from an early age. What he had done
in