Note 27 — MORE OBSERVATIONS MADE IN EGYPT, BY Guilandinus, Alpinus, and others.

Two feet ²¹⁸⁄₁₀₀₀. In the reiteration of these numbers, if any shall be offended either with the novelty or tediousness of expressing them so often. I must justify my self by the example of Ulug. Beg. nephew to Timurlane the great (for so is his name, and not Tamerlane) an Emperor of the Moguls or Tartars, (whom we term amiss the Tartars) for I find in his astronomical tables (the most accurate of any in the east) made about 200 years since, the same course observed by him, when he writes of the Grecian, Arabian, Persian, and Gelalean Epocha’s, as also of those of Catæa and Turkistan. He expresseth the numbers at large, as I have done, then in figures such as we call Arabian, because we first learned these from them; but the Arabians themselves fetch them higher, acknowledging that they received this useful invention from the Indians, and therefore from their authors they name them Indian figures. Lastly, He renders them again in particular tables. Which manner I judge worthy the imitation, in all such numbers as are radical, and of more than ordinary use: For if they be only twice expressed, if any difference shall happen by the neglect of Scribes, or Printers, it may often so fall out, that we shall not know which to make choice of, whereas if they be thrice expressed, it will be a rare chance, but that two of them will agree; which two we may generally presume to be the truth.