COLLINS (John)
, an eminent accountant and mathematician, was born at Wood Eaton near Oxford, March 5, 1624. At 16 years of age he was put apprentice to a bookseller at Oxford; but his genius appeared so remarkable for the study of the mechanical and mathematical sciences, that he was taken under the tuition of Mr. Marr, who drew several curious dials, which were placed in different positions in the king's gardens; under whom Mr. Collins made no small progress in the mathematics. In the course of the civil wars, he travelled abroad, to prosecute his favourite study; and on his return he took upon him the profession of an accountant, and published, in the year 1652, a large work entitled, An Introduction to Merchants Accompts; which was followed by several other publications on different branches of accounts. In 1658, he published a treatise called The Sector on a Quadrant; containing the description and use of four several quadrants, each accommodated to the making of sun-dials, &c; to which he afterward added an appendix concerning reflected dialling, from a glass placed reclining.—In 1659, he published his Geometrical Dialling; and the same year also his Mariner's Plain Scale new plained.—Collins now became a fellow of the Royal Society in London, to which he made various communications; particularly some ingenious chronological rules for the calendar, printed in the Philos. Trans. number 46, for April 1669: also a curious dissertation concerning the resolution of equations in numbers, in number 69, for March 1671: an elegant construction of the curious problem, having given the mutual distances of three objects in a plane, with the angles made by them at a fourth place in that plane, to find the distance of this place from each of the three former, vol. 6. pa. 2093: and thoughts about some defects in algebra, vol. 14. pa. 375.
Collins wrote also several commercial tracts, highly acceptable to the public; viz, A Plea for bringing over Irish cattle, and keeping out the fish caught by foreign- ers:—For the promotion of the English fishery:—For the working the Tin-mines:—A Discourse of Salt and Fishery. He was frequently consulted in nice and critical cases of accounts, of commerce, and engineering. On one of these occasions, being appointed to inspect the ground for cutting a canal or river between the Isis and the Avon, he contracted a disorder by drinking cyder when he was too warm, which ended in his death, the 10th of November 1683, at 59 years of age.
Mr. Collins was a very useful man to the sciences, keeping up a constant correspondence with the most learned men, both at home and abroad, and promoting the publication of many valuable works, which, but for him, would never have been seen by the public; particularly Dr. Barrow's optical and geometrical lectures; his abridgment of the works of Archimedes, Apollonius, and Theodosius; Branker's translation of Rhronius's algebra, with Dr. Pell's additions, &c; which were procured by his frequent solicitations.
It was a considerable time after, that his papers were all delivered into the hands of the learned and ingenious Mr. William Jones, F. R. S. among which were found manuscripts, upon mathematical subjects, of Briggs, Oughtred, Barrow, Newton, Pell, and many others. From a variety of letters from these, and many other celebrated mathematicians, it appears that Collins spared neither pains nor cost to procure what tended to promote real science: and even many of the late discoveries in physical knowledge owe their improvement to him; for while he excited some to make known every new and useful invention, he employed others to improve them. Sometimes he was peculiarly useful, by shewing where the defect was in any useful branch of science, pointing out the difficulties attending the enquiry, and at other times setting forth the advantages, and keeping up a spirit and warm desire for improvement. Mr. Collins was also as it were the register of all the new improvements made in the mathematical sciences; the magazine to which the curious had frequent recourse: in so much that he acquired the appellation of the English Mersennus. If some of his correspondents had not obliged him to conceal their communications, there could have been no dispute about the priority of the invention of a method of analysis, the honour of which evidently belongs to Newton; as appears undeniably from the papers printed in the Commercium Epistolicum D. Joannis Collins & aliorum de Analysi promota; jussu Societatis Regiæ in lucem editum, 1712; a work that was made out from the letters in the possession of our author.
COLLINS's Quadrant. See Quadrant.
