Among the early efforts to meet the tastes of women and at the same time coax them along the paths of a more definite mentality, we must rank _The Ladies' Diary: or, The Woman's Almanack, Containing many Delightful and Entertaining Particulars, peculiarly adapted for the Use and Diversion of the Fair-Sex_. One series of these little books ranges continuously from 1703 to 1726. The _Diaries_ were brought out anonymously, but Mr. Thoresby records in 1720 that he was visited by "Mr. Beighton of Coventry, an ingenious gentleman, author of the Ladies' Diary," so the authorship seems to have been known though not printed.[427] The announced purpose of the _Diaries_ is "to promote some Parts of Mathematical Learning amongst the Fair Sex." To this end Enigmas, Paradoxes, and Arithmetical Questions, are proposed one year, and prizes given for the answers the next year. The Paradoxes included forty-five taken from a curious textbook entitled _Gorden's Geography_. The Enigmas were usually stated and answered in verse, and sometimes they were in French or Latin. The arithmetical questions often involved in answer a page or two of algebraic formulæ or even the processes of geometry or trigonometry. As a rule the ladies were especially interested in the Enigmas, leaving the mathematical portions to the men of letters, clergymen, and schoolmasters who solaced their winter evenings with the stimuli offered by the _Woman's Almanack_. Yet the editor asserts that even in mathematics the ladies often proved themselves very skillful. In the introduction in 1718 he says: And, that the rest of the Fair Sex may be encourag'd to attempt Mathematics and Philosophical Knowledge, they here see that their Sex have as clear Judgements, a sprightly quick Wit, a penetrating Genius, and as discerning and sagacious Faculties as ours, and to my Knowledge do, and can, carry them thro' the most difficult Problems. I have seen them solve, and am fully convinc'd, their Works in the Ladies _Diary_ are their own Solutions and Compositions. This we may glory in as the _Amazons_ of our Nation; and Foreigners would be amaz'd when I shew them no less than 4 or 5 Hundred several Letters from so many several Women, with Solutions _Geometrical_, _Arithmetical_, _Algebraical_, _Astronomical_ and _Philosophical_.