Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

THE SOUTHCOTTERS. Who were the Southcotters, and who gave the name to them? A SEEKER.

Buck's "Theological Dictionary" gives an account of the Southcotters. They are well known in the south of England, and received their name from Joanna Southcott (1750?-1814). Her prophecies were published in London, 1804. She claimed to have foretold the death of Bishop Butler, and appealed to a letter she put into the hands of a clergyman whom she named. She heard a noise one night as if a ball of iron rolled down three steps, and this she declared to mean the sword, plague, and famine which were soon to come. She affirmed that the extraordinary harvests of 1797 and 1800, and the war later, were foretold by herself. She says in November, 1803, she was ordered to open her Bible, which she did at Ecclesiastes 1, 9:

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

This was the text that had much to do with her doctrine and views. Her mission began in 1792. Her last production was dated March 10, 1814. This declaration she made in reference to herself.

says:

She

"I here give notice, not to receive any person who may come in the name of Joanna Southcott, unless they can prove, that they stand on the will of the late James Cousins, and can produce the probate of his will; (he died Nov. 17, 1812). I am, likewise, ordered to print the register of my age-'Joanna, daughter of William and Hannah Southcott, baptised the 6th day of June, 1750, as appears by the registery of baptism of Ottery, St. Mary's Parish, Devon. I was born in April, but do not know the day of the month. I was inclined to have my likeness taken in order to expose any misrepresentations when I shall be no more. I was answered 'It was the will of the Lord that it should be done !' Mr. Sharp took my likeness and engraved it. In it I had the Bible placed before me, as opened by me promiscuously at the last two chapters of Isaiah."

Joanna died Dec. 27, 1814. It was given out that she was to be the mother of a Second Shiloh, as Mary had been the mother of Jesus, who was claimed to be the First Shiloh (Genesis XLIX, 10). On a stone over her grave is this inscription:

"While through all thy wondrous days
Heaven and earth enraptured gaze,
While vain sages think they know
Secrets thou alone canst show;
Time alone will tell what hour
Thou'lt appear in greater power."

Her proclamation was displayed "Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand." Just how numerous her followers were, we do not know. We have received, through the courtesy of J. W. Hackwood, Wednesbury, England, a copy of one of the organs of the Southcotters, and the Proclamation, for which we return our thanks. They are entitled as follows:

"The Morning Star: the Herald of the Coming Kingdom." No. 1. London, December 1, 1864.

"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,
The eternal years of God are hers;
But error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies amid his worshippers."

The "Proclamation, given June 3d, 1864, to the believers in the divine mission of Joanna Southcott." "Obedience is better than sacrifice." "And as the Lord is about to pour out His Spirit upon them and fulfill all those beautiful prayers that have so long been offered up to Him to destroy the works of the Devil that is come down in great wrath, because he knoweth his time is short.' "The King's business requires haste."

THE MEANING OF "PISCATAQUOG." (Vol. IV, p. 96.) The word Piscataquog, according to the Farmers' Monthly Visitor, Vol. XII, p. 47, edited by Chandler E. Potter, Manchester, N. H., 1852, is a compound Indian word from Pos (great), Attuck (deer), and Auke (place), and meaning "The Great Deer Place"; and true to its Indian name it afforded a great supply of venison, long after the English had settled on the Merrimack; Halestown, now Weare, upon its North branch, being as celebrated for hunting grounds as Amoskeag was for a fishing place.

66

THE MEANING OF NEW HAMPSHIRE." Capt. John Mason was an English naval officer, and in 1629 obtained a grant of land from the Merrimack to the Piscataqua, and sixty miles into the country, which he called "New Hampshire," he having come from the county of Hants, in England, known as Hampshire, a corruption of Hantsshire, shire meaning county. Capt. Mason died in 1635 without realizing any benefit from his grant, leaving his landed estate to his grandson, Robert Tufton, upon conditions he should take the name of Mason.

New Hampshire has no motto, but her great seal bears the words, Sigillum Neo Hantoniensis Reipublicæ. We refer our correspondent "M. G. S." to the Farmers' Monthly Visitor, Vols. XII and XIII; the "Provincial Papers of N. H.," Vols. I to XVI, for details of the seal.

EDITIONS OF EUCLID'S ELEMENTS OF GEOMETRY.

(Vol. V, p. 96.) It is next to impossible to tell how many translations or edition, have been published. We give those in our collection :

Barrow, Isaac.

Euclide's Elements, Books, I-XV; with Archimedes' Theorems; and Data by Thomas Haseldon. London, 1732. Another edition, London, 1751.

Benson, Lawrence S. Elements, excluding the Reductio Ad Absurdum reasoning. New York, 1868.

Byrne, Oliver. Doctrine of Proportion, Book V, simplified and clearly developed. London, 1841.

Byrne, Oliver. Elements, Books I-VI, by colored diagrams and symbols. London, 1847.

Cresswell, D. Supplement to Elements, Books I-VI. London, 1816. Elrington, Thomas. Elements, Books I-VI. 10th edition. Theory

of Proportion, Book V, altered. Dublin, 1833.

Fenn, Joseph. Elements, Books I-VI, XI-XII. Bordered diagrams. Dublin, 1769.

Gunn, Samuel. Elements from the Latin translation of Commandine; Books I-VI, XI-XII; faults of Harris, Caswell, Heynes, and others corrected. 8th edition. London, 1759.

Holyoake, G. J. Beauties and Uses of Euclid. London, 2d edition. Newton, Isaac. Appendix to the Elements with new propositions and data. Wisbech, 1825.

Phillips, George. Elements, Books I-VI; translated from Peyrard's edition. London, 1826.

Playfair, John. Elements, Books I-VI, XI-XII; with supplement on the quadrature of the circle; solids. New York, 1854.

Roche, Martin. Elements, Books I-VI; Simpson's and Playfair's corrected. Philadelphia, 1829.

Simson, Robert. Books I-VI, XI-XII; with Data. Theon's errors and others corrected. Philadelphia, 1829.

Thompson, James. Elements, Books I-VI, XI-XII. 3d edition. London, 1845.

Whewell, William. Mechanical Euclid, with mathematical reasoning and logical deduction. Cambridge and London, 1837. Whiston, William.

Elements, Books I-IV, XI-XII; with Archimedes' Theorems, by Andrew Tacquet. 3d edition, London, 1727. Tenth edition, with practical corollaries. Dublin, 1775.

MNEMONICAL SECRETS.

(Vol. V, p. 96.)

Some prodigies have wonderful memories, while others have a key to guide their memories; especially is this true where long decimals are repeated. There is a mathematical law that governs many decimals, especially repetends. The repetends of certain primes are limited to one less than the particular prime. For instance, the prime 7 gives for a repetend six decimals, .142857. The last half of the decimals being complements of 9's of the first half; thus when the first half of the repetend is obtained the last half is immediately written down. So of many primes.

Timothy Clowes, LL.D., of New York, forty years ago used to surprise his audiences by repeating the repetend-decimal of 337. He committed the first 168 to memory and immediately followed them by their difference from nines.

No. (1) is the first 168 decimals and No. (2) the last 168 decimals: (1) 00296735905044510385756676557863501483679525222551928783(2).99703264094955489614243323442136498516320474777448071216(1) 38278931750741839762611275964391691394658753709198813056(2) 61721068249258160237388724035608308605341246290801186943(1) 37082195845697329376854599406528189910979228486646884272. (2) 6291780415430267062314540059347 18 10089020771513353115727,

Another mnemotechnist will repeat the decimal of 487. This repetend-decimal is easily written down after obtaining the first 45 decimals. Then divide this decimal by 2, beginning with the second figure, continuing to the 441st place:

= .00205 33880 90349 07597 53598 42915 81108 82956 87885 0102 66940 45174 53798 76796 71457 90554 41478 43942 5051 33470 22587 26899 38398 35728 95277 20739 21971 2525 66735 11293 63449 69199 17864 47638 60369 60985 6262 83367 55646 81724 84599 58932 23819 30184 80492 8131 41683 77823 40862 42299 79466 11909 65092 40246 4065 70841 88911 70431 21149 89733 05954 82546 20123 2032 85420 94455 85215 60574 94866 52977 41273 10061 6016 42710 47227 92607 80287 47433 26488 70636 55030 8008 21355 23613 96303 90143 73716 63244 35318 27515 4004 10677 61806 98151 95071 86858 31622 17659 13757

7

This decimal, it will be readily observed, obtained after the first 45

decimals (the first line), by halving it and each subsequent line.

The peculiar properties of this number 487 were first noticed by Desmarest who divided the periods of each number up to 1000 and tabulated them. He found that the numbers 3 and 487 were the only two below 1.000 that produced a repetend that would divide their own divisor without a remainder. All the numbers below 1,000 that limit their repetend-decimal to one less than the number itself are fifty-four as follows

[blocks in formation]

Some one of these repetend decimals are usually selected the result of which fall under a mathematical law.

π

Francis Fauvel-Gouraud, a phreno-mnemotechnist, used to surprise his auditors forty years ago, by repeating the usually accepted value of (ratio of circumference to diameter), to 155 decimals, which is that of the Radcliffe manuscript in the Oxford library. Even if he committed this to memory, he had 13 less figures to remember than Timothy Clowes before mentioned. Our correspondent, “ F. K. Goldsmith," can find much information on mnemonics by consulting the "Phreno - Mnemotechnic Dictionary," by Francis Fauvel-Gouraud, New York, 1844.

This person

"THE UNPUNCTUATING DODSON." (Vol. V, p. 96.) was the Rev. J. Dobson, a fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, England, who was rector of Brandesburton in Yorkshire, and died in 1847. He was also called "Death Dobson" on account of his head and aspect of countenance being not very unlike the ordinary pictures of human skulls. He published five tracts in which are no punctuation, except a period at the end of the paragraphs. No captials were used excepting at the beginning of paragraphs. Not a single proper name is in them. He published the "Elements of Geometry" in two quarto volumes, in 1814, which were treated the same way, excepti ng when a comma was wanted between letters representing straight lines as AB, BC.

« AnteriorContinuar »