The Author's Preface to the Admirable Table of Logarithms
Original title: The Authors Preface to the Admirable Table of Logarithmes (Latin)
John Napier (1550–1617)
Translated by Edward Wright (1561–1615), 1616
1616 (Latin original 1614)

Cold Library · Open Stacks · S-007213 · https://coldlibrary.com/s/007213
Rights: Published in 1616; Napier died in 1617 and the translator, Edward Wright, in 1615. Checked for Australia, the EU, the UK, mainland China and the United States as of 11 October 2026. Guidance, not legal advice.
Source: Internet Archive, A description of the admirable table of logarithmes (1616), https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_a-description-of-the-adm_napier-john_1616 (retrieved 2026-10-11)
Generated 2026-10-14 from https://coldlibrary.com/en/open-stacks/napier-the-authors-preface

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Seeing there is nothing (right well beloued Students in the Mathematickes) that is so troublesome to Mathematicall practise, nor that doth more molest and hinder Calculators, then the Multiplications, Diuisions, square and cubical Extractions of great numbers, which besides the tedious expence of time, are for the most part subiect to many slippery errors. I began therefore to consider in my minde, by what certaine and ready Art I might remoue those hindrances. And hauing thought vpon many things to this purpose, I found at length some excellent briefe rules to be treated of (perhaps) hereafter. But amongst all, none more profitable then this, which together with the hard and tedious Multiplications, Diuisions, and Extractions of rootes, doth also cast away from the worke it selfe, euen the very numbers themselues that are to be multiplied, diuided, and resolued into rootes, and putteth other numbers in their place, which performe as much as they can do, onely by Addition and Subtraction, Diuision by two, or Diuision by three: which secret inuention, being (as all other good things are) so much the better as it shall be the more common, I thought good heretofore to set forth in Latine for the publique vse of Mathematicians. But now some of our Countreymen in this Island well affected to these studies, and the more publique good, procured a most learned Mathematician to translate the same into our vulgar English tongue, who after he had finished it, sent the Coppy of it to me, to bee seene and considered on by my selfe. I hauing most willingly and gladly done the same, finde it to bee most exact and precisely conformable to my minde and the originall. Therefore it may please you who are inclined to these studies, to receiue it from me and the Translator, with as much good will as we recommend it vnto you. *Fare yee well.*