PYTHAGORAS was born about 582 B.C. at Samos, one of the Grecian isles. In his youth he came in contact with THALES--the Father of Geometry, as he is well called,--and though he did not become a member of THALES' school, his contact with the latter no doubt helped to turn his mind towards the study of geometry. This interest found the right ground for its development in Egypt, which he visited when still young. Egypt is generally regarded as the birthplace of geometry, the subject having, it is supposed, been forced on the minds of the Egyptians by the necessity of fixing the boundaries of lands against the annual overflowing of the Nile. But the Egyptians were what is called an essentially practical people, and their geometrical knowledge did not extend beyond a few empirical rules useful for fixing these boundaries and in constructing their temples. Striking evidence of this fact is supplied by the AHMES papyrus, compiled some little time before 1700 B.C. from an older work dating from about 3400 B.C.,(1) a papyrus which almost certainly represents the highest mathematical knowledge reached by the Egyptians of that day. Geometry is treated very superficially and as of subsidiary interest to arithmetic; there is no ordered series of reasoned geometrical propositions given--nothing, indeed, beyond isolated rules, and of these some are wanting in accuracy. (1) See AUGUST EISENLOHR: _Ein mathematisches Handbuch der alten Aegypter_ (1877); J. Gow: _A Short History of Greek Mathematics_ (1884); and V. E. JOHNSON: _Egyptian Science from the Monuments and Ancient Books_ (1891).