Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850, page 29 by Various Authors
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amongst mathematicians, the Magazines, the Diaries, and various other periodicals, began to show the results of the activity which had thus been created; geometrical questions became much more abundant, and a numerous list of contributions appeared which afford ample proof that their able authors had entered deeply into the spirit of the ancient geometry. During the year 1777 Mr. Lawson issued the first portion of Dr. Simson's restoration of Euclid's Porisms, translated from the Opera Reliqua of that distinguished geometer; and though the work was not continued, sufficient had already been done to furnish the generality of students with a clue to the real nature of this celebrated enigma of antiquity. The last of these worthy benefactors to the non-academic geometers of the last century was Mr. Reuben Burrow, who by publishing in 1779 his Restitution of Apollonius Pergæus on Inclinations gave publicity to a valuable relic which would otherwise have remained buried in the Latin obscurity of Dr. Horsley's more elaborate production.
During the greater portion of the time just reviewed, Mr. Jeremiah Ainsworth was resident in the neighbourhood of Manchester, and so early as 1761 was in correspondence with the editors of the Mathematical Magazine. He subsequently associated with Mr. George Taylor, a gentleman of kindred habits, then resident in the immediate vicinity, and these worthy veterans of science, as time wore on, collected around them a goodly array of pupils and admirers, and hence may truly be said not only to have laid the foundation of the "Oldham Society," but also to have been the fathers of the Lancashire school of geometers. Such then was the state of affairs in the mathematical world at the period of which we are speaking; all the works just enumerated were attracting the attention of all classes of students by their novelty or elegance; Dr. Hutton and the Rev. Charles Wildbore had the management of the Diaries, each vieing w