The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c5.8

c5.8

¹ From the 1558 edition of *The Grovnd of Artes*, fol. C, 5. Similarly Bishop Tonstall writes: “Qui a Chaldeis primum in finitimos, deinde in omnes pene gentes fluxit. . . . Numerandi artem a Chaldeis esse profectam : qui dum scribunt, a dextra incipiunt, et in leuam progrediuntur.” [*De arte supputandi*, London, 1522, fol. B, 3.] Gemma Frisius, the great continental rival of Recorde, had the same idea: “Primùm autem appellamus dexterum locum, eo quòd haec ars vel à Chaldæis, vel ab Hebræis ortum habere credatur, qui etiam eo ordine scribunt”; but this refers more evidently to the Arabic numerals. [*Arithmeticæ practicæ methodvs facilis*, Antwerp, 1540, fol. 4 of the 1563 ed.] Sacrobosco (c. 1225) mentions the same thing. Even the modern Jewish writers claim that one of their scholars, Māshāllāh (c. 800), introduced them to the Mohammedan world. [C. Levias, *The Jewish Encyclopedia*, New York, 1905, Vol. IX, p. 348.]