Page:A history of Japanese mathematics (IA historyofjapanes00smitiala).pdf/30



Before proceeding to a consideration of the third period of Japanese mathematics, approximately the seventeenth century of the Christian era, it becomes necessary to turn our attention to the history of the simple but remarkable calculating machine which is universal in all parts of the Island Empire, the soroban. This will be followed by a chapter upon another mechanical aid known as the sangi, since each of these devices had a marked influence upon higher as well as elementary mathematics from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.

The numeral systems of the ancients were so unsuited to the purposes of actual calculation that probably some form of mechanical calculation was always necessary. The fact is the more evident when we consider that convenient writing material