Martelli' Tables

Abstract

Captain S. T. L. Lecky, in his famous Wrinkles, wrote with derision in his reference to so-called ‘short-methods’. He warned his readers to ‘beware’ of these:They generally only look short [wrote Lecky] because good care is taken to apply the various corrections beforehand, and the unsuspecting reader is deceived of this device.As a case in point Lecky considered the ‘small but expensive pamphlet by Mr. Martelli’, to support his derogatory remarks:When his so-called ‘short-method’ is overhauled and compared with Raper, we get the following startling result:—Martelli, 56 figures and five logarithms, against Raper's 59 figures and five logarithms, required to produce the same result. So that by the first method we have the enormous (!!!) gain of three figures. Furthermore Mr. Martelli's pamphlet contains several glaring errors which makes one rather dubious about the general correctness of the tables, although (for all the writer (Lecky) knows to the contrary) the mathematical principle of his method may be correct enough.