g
requisites--others might be added as funds permit:

A. A very large room for calculating Greatest Common Measure. To this a
small one might be attached for Least Common Multiple: this, however,
might be dispensed with.

B. A piece of open ground for keeping Roots and practising their
extraction: it would be advisable to keep Square Roots by themselves, as
their corners are apt to damage others.

C. A room for reducing Fractions to their Lowest Terms. This should be
provided with a cellar for keeping the Lowest Terms when found, which
might also be available to the general body of Undergraduates, for the
purpose of "keeping Terms."

D. A large room which might be darkened, and fitted up with a
magic-lantern, for the purpose of exhibiting circulating Decimals in the
act of circulation. This might also contain cupboards, fitted with glass
doors, for keeping the various Scales of Notation.

E. A narrow strip of ground, railed off and carefully levelled for
investigating the properties of Asymptotes, and testing practically
whether Parallel Lines meet or not: for this purpose it should reach, to
use the expressive language of Euclid, "ever so far."

This last process of "continually producing the lines," may require
centuries or more; but such a period, though long in the life of an
individual, is as nothing in the life of the University.

As Photography is now very much employed in recording human expression,
and might possibly be adapted to Algebraical Expressions, a small
photographic room would be desirable, both for general use and for
representing the various phenomena of Gravity, Disturbance of
Equilibrium, Resolution, etc., which affect the features during severe
mathematical operations.

May I trust that you will give your immediate attention to this most
important subject?

Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
MATHEMATICUS....

[Sidenote: _Miss E.G. Thomson_]

It was at the end of December, 1878, that a letter, written in a
singularly legible and rather boyish-looking hand, came to me from
Christ Church, Oxford, signed "C.L. Dodgson." The writer said that he
had come across some fairy designs of mine, and he should like to see
some more of my work. By the same post came a letter from my London
publisher (who had supplied my address) telling me that the "Rev. C.L.
Dodgson" was "Lewis Carroll."

"Alice in Wonderland" had long been one of my pet books, and, as one
regards a favo