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 themselves, that the decimal notation is a discovery for which they are indebted to the Hindus. At what time the communication took place, has, I believe, never yet been ascertained. But it seems natural to suppose that it was at the same period, when, after the accession of the Abbaside dynasty to the caliphat, a most lively interest for mathematical and astronomical science first arose among the Arabs. Not only the most important foreign works on these sciences were then translated into Arabic, but learned foreigners even lived at the court of Bagdad, and held conspicuous situations in those scientific establishments which the noble ardour of the caliphs had called forth. History has transmitted to us the names of several distinguished scholars, neither Arabs by birth nor Mohammedans by their profession, who were thus attached to the court of and ; and we know from