Arithmetica et Geometria practica. By Adrian Metius. Leyden, 1640,
4to.[168]
This book contains the celebrated approximation _guessed at_ by his father,
Peter Metius,[169] namely that the diameter is {100} to the circumference
as 113 to 355. The error is at the rate of about a foot in 2,000 miles.
Peter Metius, having his attention called to the subject by the false
quadrature of Duchesne, found that the ratio lay between 333/106 and
377/120. He then took the liberty of taking the mean of both numerators and
denominators, giving 355/113. He had no right to presume that this mean was
better than either of the extremes; nor does it appear positively that he
did so. He published nothing; but his son Adrian,[170] when Van Ceulen's
work showed how near his father's result came to the truth, first made it
known in the work above. (See _Eng. Cyclop._, art. "Quadrature.")