NOTES ON EUCLID'S ELEMENTS.
The article Eucleides in Dr Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography was written by Professor De Morgan; it contains an account of the works of Euclid, and of the various editions of them which have been published. To that article we refer the student who desires full information on these subjects. Perhaps the only work of importance relating to Euclid which has been published since the date of that article is a work on the Porisms of Euclid by Chasles; Paris, 1860.
Euclid appears to have lived in the time of the first Ptolemy B.C. 323—283, and to have been the founder of the Alexandrian mathematical school. The work on Geometry known as The Elements of Euclid consists of thirteen books; two other books have sometimes been added, of which it is supposed that Hypsicles was the author. Besides the Elements, Euclid was the author of other works, some of which have been preserved and some lost.
We will now mention the three editions which are the most valuable for those who wish to read the Elements of Euclid in the original Greek.
(1) The Oxford edition in folio, published in 1703 by David Gregory, under the title Εύκλείδον τά σωόμενα. "As an edition of the whole of Euclid's works, this stands alone, there being no other in Greek." De Morgan.
(2) Euclidis Elementorum Libri sex priores... edidit Joannes Gulielrmus Camerer. This edition was published at Berlin in two volumes octavo, the first volume in 1824 and the second in 1825. It contains the first six books of the Elements in Greek with a Latin Translation, and very good notes which form a mathematical commentary on the subject.
(3) Euclidis Elementa ex optimis libris in usum tironum Greece edita ab Ernesto Ferdinando August. This edition was published at Berlin in two volumes octavo, the first volume in 1826 and the second in 1829. It contains the thirteen books of the Elements in Greek, with a collection of various readings.
