Note 286 — MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF DAVID RITTENHOUSE; CONTINUED, FROM THE TIME OF HIS SETTLEMENT IN PHILADELPHIA.
Reading edition
John Napier, called Baron of Merchiston, in Scotland, was the eldest son of Sir Archibald Napier, of Merchiston, and was born in the year 1550. As Lalande, in his Astronomie, observes—“he deserves to be celebrated in a book on Astronomy, for his invention of Logarithms, which he published in 1614. He had,” continues Mr. Lalande, “at first concealed the principle of this discovery: but Kepler soon penetrated it; and the son of Napier, in an edition of his father’s work, which he published, explained the ground of the principles.”
The son here mentioned, Sir Archibald, was promoted to the peerage by Car. I. in the year 1657, and was ancestor of the present Lord Napier.
An account of the Life and Writings of the Inventor of Logarithms was published by the Earl of Buchan. W. B.