Dear Senior Censor,—­In a desultory conversation on a point connected with the dinner at our high table, you incidentally remarked to me that lobster-sauce, “though a necessary adjunct to turbot, was not entirely wholesome!”

It is entirely unwholesome.  I never ask for it without reluctance:  I never take a second spoonful without a feeling of apprehension on the subject of a possible nightmare.  This naturally brings me to the subject of Mathematics, and of the accommodation provided by the University for carrying on the calculations necessary in that important branch of Science.

As Members of Convocation are called upon (whether personally, or, as is less exasperating, by letter) to consider the offer of the Clarendon Trustees, as well as every other subject of human, or inhuman, interest, capable of consideration, it has occurred to me to suggest for your consideration how desirable roofed buildings are for carrying on mathematical calculations:  in fact, the variable character of the weather in Oxford renders it highly inexpedient to attempt much occupation, of a sedentary nature, in the open air.

Again, it is often impossible for students to carry on accurate mathematical calculations in close contiguity to one another, owing to their mutual conversation; consequently these processes require different rooms in which irrepressible conversationalists, who are found to occur in every branch of Society, might be carefully and permanently fixed.

    It may be sufficient for the present to enumerate the
    following 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