There is indirect evidence that Napier was occupied with logarithms as early as 1594, for in a letter to P. Crügerus from Kepler, dated September 9, 1624 (Frisch's _Kepler_, vi. 47), there occurs the sentence: "Nihil autem supra Neperianam rationem esse puto: etsi quidem Scotus quidam literis ad Tychonem 1594 scriptis jam spem fecit Canonis illius Mirifici." It is here distinctly stated that some Scotsman in the year 1594, in a letter to Tycho Brahe, gave him some hope of the logarithms; and as Kepler joined Tycho after his expulsion from the island of Huen, and had been so closely associated with him in his work, he would be likely to be correct in any assertion of this kind. In connexion with Kepler's statement the following story, told by Anthony wood in the _Athenae Oxonienses_, is of some importance:-- "It must be now known, that one Dr Craig, a Scotchman ... coming out of Denmark into his own country, called upon Joh. Neper, Baron of Mercheston, near Edinburgh, and told him, among other discourses, of a new invention in Denmark (by Longomontanus, as 'tis said), to save the tedious multiplication and division in astronomical calculations. Neper being solicitous to know farther of him concerning this matter, he could give no other account of it than that it was by proportional numbers. Which hint Neper taking, he desired him at his return to call upon him again. Craig, after some weeks had passed, did so, and Neper then showed him a rude draught of what he called _Canon mirabilis logarithmorum_. which draught, with some alterations, he printing in 1614, it came forthwith into the hands of our author Briggs, and into those of Will. Oughtred, from whom the relation of this matter came."