Fundamentalis Figura Geometrica, primas tantum lineas circuli
quadraturae possibilitatis ostendens. By Niels Erichsen (Nicolaus
Ericius), shipbuilder, of Copenhagen. Copenhagen, 1755, 12mo.
This was a gift from my oldest friend who was not a relative, Dr. Samuel
Maitland of the "Dark Ages."[358] He found it among his books, and could
not imagine how he came by it: I could have told him. He once collected
interpretations of the Apocalypse: and auction lots of such {164} books
often contain quadratures. The wonder is he never found more than one.
The quadrature is not worth notice. Erichsen is the only squarer I have met
with who has distinctly asserted the particulars of that reward which has
been so frequently thought to have been offered in England. He says that in
1747 the Royal Society on the 2d of June, offered to give a large reward
for the quadrature of the circle and a true explanation of magnetism, in
addition to L30,000 previously promised for the same. I need hardly say
that the Royal Society had not L30,000 at that time, and would not, if it
had had such a sum, have spent it on the circle, nor on magnetic theory;
nor would it have coupled the two things. On this book, see _Notes and
Queries_, 1st S., xii, 306. Perhaps Erichsen meant that the L30,000 had
been promised by the Government, and the addition by the Royal Society.
October 8, 1866. I receive a letter from a cyclometer who understands that
a reward is offered to any one who will square the circle, and that all
competitors are to send their plans to me. The hoaxers have not yet failed
out of the land.