Pappus

, a very eminent Greek of Alexandria, flourished, according to Suidas, under the emperor Theodosius the Great, from the year 379 to* 395, and acquired deserved fame as a consummate mathematician. Many of his works are lost, or at least have not yet been discovered. Suidas and Vossius mention as the principal of them, his “Mathematical Collections,” in 8 books, of which the first and part of the second are lost; a “Commentary upon Ptolomy’s Almagest;” an “Universal Chorography;” “A Description of the Rivers of Libya;” a treatise or' “Military Engines;” “Commentaries upon Aristarchus of Samos, concerning the Magnitude and Distance of the Sun and Moon,” &c. Of these, there have been published, “The Mathematical Collections,” in a Latin translation, with a large commentary, by Commandine, in 1588, folio; reprinted in 1660. In 1644, Mersenne exhibited an | abridgment of them in his <c Synopsis JVIathematica,“in 4to, containing only such propositions as could be understood without figure*. In 1655, Meibomius gave some of the Lemmata of the seventh book, in his” Dialogue upon Proportions.“In 1688, Dr. Wallis printed the last twelve propositions of the second book, at the end of his” Aristarchus Samius.“In 1703, Dr. David Gregory gave part of the preface of the seventh book, in the Prolegomena to his Euclid. And in 1706, Dr. Halley exhibited that preface entire, in the beginning of his” Apollonius." Dr. Ilutton, in his Dictionary, has given an excellent analysis of the “Mathematical Collections.” ¹