I do not despair of Mr. Smith on any question which does not involve that unfortunate two-stick wicket at which he persists in bowling. He has published many papers; he has forwarded them to mathematicians: and he cannot get answers; perhaps not even readers. Does he think that he would get more notice if you were to print him in your journal? Who would study his columns? Not the mathematician, we know; and he knows. Would others? His balls are aimed too wide to be blocked by any one who is near the wicket. He has long ceased to be worth the answer which a new invader may get. Rowan Hamilton,[647] years ago, completely knocked him over; and he has never attempted to point out any error in the short and easy method by which that powerful investigator condescended to show that, be right who may, he must be wrong. There are some persons who feel inclined to think that Mr. Smith should be argued with: let those persons understand that he has been argued with, refuted, and has never attempted to stick a pen into the refutation. He stated that it was a remarkable paradox, easily explicable; and that is all. After this evasion, Mr. James Smith is below the necessity of being told that he is unworthy of answer. His friends complain that I do nothing but _chaff_ him. Absurd! I winnow him; and if nothing but chaff results, whose fault is that? I am usefully employed: for he is the type of a class which ought to be known, and which I have done much to make known. {344} Nothing came of this until July 1869, when I received a reprint of the above letter, with a comment, described as Appendix D of a work in course of publication on the geometry of the circle. The _Athenaeum_ journal received the same: but the Editor, in his private capacity, received the whole work, being _The Geometry of the Circle and Mathematics as applied to Geometry by Mathematicians, shown to be a mockery, delusion, and a snare_, Liverpool, 8vo, 1869. Mr. J. S. here appears in deep fight with Professor Whitworth,[648] and Mr. Wilson,[649] the author of the alleged amendment of Euclid. How these accomplished mathematicians could be inveigled into continued discussion is inexplicable. Mr. Whitworth began by complaining of Mr. Smith's attacks upon mathematicians, continued to correspond after he was convinced that J. S. proved an arc and its chord to be equal, and only retreated when J. S. charged him with believing in 3-1/8, and refusing acknowledgment. Mr. Wilson was introduced to J. S. by a volunteer defense of his geometry from the assaults of the _Athenaeum_. This the editor would not publish; so J. S. sent a copy to Mr. Wilson himself. Some correspondence ensued, but Mr. Wilson soon found out his man, and withdrew. There is a little derision of the _Athenaeum_ and a merited punishment for "that unscrupulous critic and contemptible mathematical twaddler, De Morgan." MR. REDDIE'S ASTRONOMY.