It now remains to notice briefly a few of the more important events in the history of logarithmic tables subsequent to the original calculations.
Common or Briggian Logarithms of Numbers.—Nathaniel Roe’s Tabulae logarithmicae (1633) was the first complete seven-figure table that was published. It contains seven-figure logarithms of numbers from 1 to 100,000, with characteristics unseparated from the mantissae, and was formed from Vlacq’s table (1628) by leaving out the last three figures. All the figures of the number are given at the head of the columns, except the last two, which run down the extreme columns—1 to 50 on the left-hand side, and 50 to 100 on the right-hand side. The first four figures of the logarithms are printed at the top of the columns. There is thus an advance half way towards the arrangement now universal in seven-figure tables. The final step was made by John Newton in his Trigonometria Britannica (1658), a work which is also noticeable as being the only extensive eight-figure table that until recently had been published; it contains logarithms of sines, &c., as well as logarithms of numbers.
In 1705 appeared the original edition of Sherwin’s tables, the first of the series of ordinary seven-figure tables of logarithms of numbers and trigonometrical functions such as are in general use now. The work went through several editions during the 18th century, and was at length superseded in 1785 by Hutton’s tables, which continued in successive editions to maintain their position for a century.
In 1717 Abraham Sharp published in his Geometry Improv’d the Briggian logarithms of numbers from 1 to 100, and of primes from 100 to 1100, to 61 places; these were copied into the later editions of Sherwin and other works.
In 1742 a seven-figure table was published in quarto form by Gardiner, which is celebrated on account of its accuracy and of the elegance of the printing. A French edition, which closely resembles the original, was published at Avignon in 1770.
In 1783 appeared at Paris the first edition of François Callet’s tables, which correspond to those of Hutton in England. These tables, which form perhaps the most complete and practically useful collection of logarithms for the general computer that has been published, passed through many editions.
In 1794 Vega published his Thesaurus logarithmorum completus, a folio volume containing a reprint of the logarithms of numbers from Vlacq’s Arithmetica logarithmica of 1628, and Trigonometria artificialis of 1633. The logarithms of numbers are arranged as in an ordinary seven-figure table. In addition to the logarithms reprinted from the Trigonometria, there are given logarithms for every second of the first two degrees, which were the result of an original calculation. Vega devoted great attention to the detection and correction of the errors in Vlacq’s work of 1628. Vega’s Thesaurus has been reproduced photographically by the Italian government. Vega also published in 1797, in 2 vols. 8vo, a collection of logarithmic and trigonometrical tables which has passed through many editions, a very useful one volume stereotype edition having been published in 1840 by Hülsse. The tables in this work may be regarded as to some extent supplementary to those in Callet.
If we consider only the logarithms of numbers, the main line of descent from the original calculation of Briggs and Vlacq is Roe, John Newton, Sherwin, Gardiner; there are then two branches, viz. Hutton founded on Sherwin and Callet on Gardiner, and the editions of Vega form a separate offshoot from the original tables. Among the most useful and accessible of modern ordinary seven-figure tables of logarithms of numbers and trigonometrical functions may be mentioned those of Bremiker, Schrön and Bruhns. For logarithms of numbers only perhaps Babbage’s table is the most convenient.[12]
In 1871 Edward Sang published a seven-figure table of logarithms of numbers from 20,000 to 200,000, the logarithms between 100,000 and 200,000 being the result of a new calculation. By beginning the table at 20,000 instead of at 10,000 the differences are halved in magnitude, while the number of them in a page is quartered. In this table multiples of the differences, instead of proportional parts, are given.[13] John Thomson of Greenock (1782-1855) made an independent calculation of logarithms of numbers up to 120,000 to 12 places of decimals, and his table has been used to verify the errata already found in Vlacq and Briggs by Lefort (see Monthly Not. R.A.S. vol. 34, p. 447). A table of ten-figure logarithms of numbers up to 100,009 was calculated by W. W. Duffield and published in the Report of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey for 1895-1896 as Appendix 12, pp. 395-722. The results were compared with Vega’s Thesaurus (1794) before publication.
Common or Briggian Logarithms of Trigonometrical Functions.—The next great advance on the Trigonometria artificialis took place more than a century and a half afterwards, when Michael Taylor published in 1792 his seven-decimal table of log sines and tangents to every second of the quadrant; it was calculated by interpolation from the Trigonometria to 10 places and then contracted to 7. On account of the great size of this table, and for other reasons, it never came into very general use, Bagay’s Nouvelles tables astronomiques (1829), which also contains log sines and tangents to every second, being preferred; this latter work, which for many years was difficult to procure, has been reprinted with the original title-page and date unchanged. The only other logarithmic canon to every second that has been published forms the second volume of Shortrede’s Logarithmic Tables (1849). In 1784 the French government decided that new tables of sines, tangents, &c., and their logarithms, should be calculated in relation to the centesimal division of the quadrant. Prony was charged with the direction of the work, and was expressly required “non seulement à composer des tables qui ne laissassent rien à désirer quant à l’exactitude, mais à en faire le monument de calcul le plus vaste et le plus imposant qui eût jamais été exécuté ou même conçu.” Those engaged upon the work were divided into three sections: the first consisted of five or six mathematicians, including Legendre, who were engaged in the purely analytical work, or the calculation of the fundamental numbers; the second section consisted of seven or eight calculators possessing some mathematical knowledge; and the third comprised seventy or eighty ordinary computers. The work, which was performed wholly in duplicate, and independently by two divisions of computers, occupied two years. As a consequence of the double calculation, there are two manuscripts, one deposited at the Observatory, and the other in the library of the Institute, at Paris. Each of the two manuscripts consists essentially of seventeen large folio volumes, the contents being as follows:—