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38o SECONDE PARTIE. — CONFERENCES ET COMMUNICATIONS. — SECTION V.

of minor or branch schools, into which this old school has been subdivided in lhe course of time, each of them following notations which differ to a certain extent from one another. In this connection, it may he observed that many of the difficulties which one has to encounter in trying to make himself familiar with the présent suhject, may he traced to the varions controversies and even jealousies which appear to hâve existed among lhese minor schools.

There is an innumerahle numher of books relating to the suhject, of which a large number is not printed but preserved by transcription. Since some time, the impérial university of Tokio has been collecting books, manuscripts, etc., relating to the mathematics of the old Japanese school. The collection now amounts to more than two thousand volumes, but it seems to be only a small fraction of what must he collecled to bave any claim to completeness. No doubt a large number of these are devoted to subjects which are enlirelv elementary; but it so happens that things which seem to he original and valuable are mixed up with the calculations belonging to elementary arithmetic. On this account, one who would like to make himself master of the suhject must go, with ail the disadvantages of varied notations, lack of systématisation and classification, etc., through almost ail the innumerahle books, in order not to miss things which are really important. To start with, he knows that the complété study of the suhject is a life-work, or even more, for him, with the prospect that a large part of his work will prove to he a vvaste labour. It is needless to say that this is hy no means a fascinating work; at the same time the difficulties which 1 bave been mentioning, and which may fairly he compared with those attending the study of Egyptian hieroglyphs, are the difficulties which a historian must' he prepared to meet with. I hope to he able to find some among the voung men who are studying mathematics under my direction, whom I could persuade to devote their lives to lhe profound study of the suhject of which the présent note gives only a superficial account. It is in view of having such men that the impérial university of Tokio has been collecting the literature relating to this suhject, as before said.

In this connection, a new impetus was given hy my friend and former colleague Dr. Kikuchi. He has translated some of the methods of finding the value of TT, discovered hy men of the old school, from the obsolète language of the original into lhe intelligible language of modem mathematics. His papers are coutained in the recent volumes and, I heleive, also in the forthcoming volume of the proceedings of the Tokio mathematical

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