[I omitted from its proper place a manuscript quadrature (3.1416 exactly)
addressed to an eminent mathematician, dated in 1842 from the debtor's ward
of a country gaol. The unfortunate speculator says, "I have labored many
years to find the precise ratio." I have heard of several cases in which
squaring the circle has produced an inability to square accounts. I remind
those who feel a kind of inspiration to employ native genius upon
difficulties, without gradual progression from elements, that the call is
one which becomes stronger and stronger, and may lead, as it has led, to
abandonment of the duties of life, and all the consequences.] {348}
1842. Provisional Prospectus of the Double Acting Rotary Engine
Company. Also Mechanic's Magazine, March 26, 1842.
Perpetual motion by a drum with one vertical half in mercury, the other in
a vacuum: the drum, I suppose, working round forever to find an easy
position. Steam to be superseded: steam and electricity convulsions of
nature never intended by Providence for the use of man. The price of the
present engines, as old iron, will buy new engines that will work without
fuel and at no expense. Guaranteed by the Count de Predaval,[725] the
discoverer. I was to have been a Director, but my name got no further than
ink, and not so far as official notification of the honor, partly owing to
my having communicated to the _Mechanic's Magazine_ information privately
given to me, which gave premature publicity, and knocked up the plan.
An Exposition of the Nature, Force, Action, and other properties of
Gravitation on the Planets. London, 1842, 12mo.
An Investigation of the principles of the Rules for determining the
Measures of the Areas and Circumferences of Circular Plane Surfaces ...
London, 1844, 8vo.
These are anonymous; but the author (whom I believe to be Mr. Denison,[726]
presently noted) is described as author of a new system of mathematics, and
also of mechanics. He had need have both, for he shows that the line which
has a square equal to a given circle, has a cube equal to the sphere on the
same diameter: that is, in old mathematics, the diameter is to the
circumference as 9 to 16! Again, admitting that the velocities of planets
in circular orbits are inversely as the square roots of their distances,
that is, admitting Kepler's law, he manages to prove that gravitation is
inversely as the square _root_ of the distance: and suspects magnetism of
doing the difference between this and Newton's law. {349} Magnetism and
electricity are, in physics, the member of parliament and the cabman--at
every man's bidding, as Henry Warburton[727] said.
The above is an outrageous quadrature. In the preceding year, 1841, was
published what I suppose at first to be a Maori quadrature, by Maccook. But
I get it from a cutting out of some French periodical, and I incline to
think that it must be by a Mr. M^cCook. He makes [pi] to be 2 +
2[root](8[root]2 - 11).