( xvi )
obligations to him are not confined to this only; for his luminous advice has enabled me to overcome many difficulties, which, to my own limited proficiency in mathematics, would have been almost insurmountable.
In some notes on the Arabic text which are appended to my translation, I have endeavoured, not so much to elucidate, as to point out for further enquiry, a few circumstances connected with the history of Algebra. The comparisons drawn between the Algebra of the Arabs and that of the early Italian writers might perhaps have been more numerous and more detailed; but my enquiry was here restricted by the want of some important works. Montucla, Cossali, Hutton, and the Basil edition of Cardanus’ Ars magna, were the only sources which I had the opportunity of consulting.
