A wire that leads from a point near the end of a gaff to a point near the other end. A block travels along this wire, and a halyard is attached to the block. This allows the gaff to be raised to the vertical by a single halyard.
A set of hoops or parrelbeads which secure the gaff loosely to the mast in a vertical position.
The first calculation or publication of Briggian or common logarithms of trigonometrical functions was made in 1620 by Edmund Gunter, who was Briggs's colleague as professor of 1 It was certainly published after Napier's death, as Briggs mentions his " librum posthumum."
The title of Gunter's book, which is very scarce, is Canon triangulorum, and it contains logarithmic sines and tangents for every minute of the quadrant to 7 places of decimals.
An account has now been given of Napier's invention and its publication, the transition to decimal logarithms, the calculation of the tables by Briggs, Vlacq and Gunter, as well as of the claims of Byrgius and the method of prosthaphaeresis.
In the following year, 1626, Denis Henrion published at Paris a Traicte des Logarithmes, containing Briggs's logarithms of numbers up to 20,001 to io places, and Gunter's log sines and tangents to 7 places for every minute.