NAPIER, JOHN, Laird of Merehiston, was b. at Merchiston castle, near Edinburgh, in 1550• and (1, there on April 4. 1617. After attending the regular course in arts at the university of St. Andrews. he traveled for some time on the continent, and returned to his native country highly informed and cultivated for the age. Declining all civil employments, for whieh his many accomplishments eminently fitted him, he preferred the seclusion of a life devoted to literary and scientific study. From this time his history is a blank till 1593, when he published his Plaine Discouery (or " interpretation") of the whole Renelation of Saint John, (Edin. 5th ed. 4to. 1645), a work displaying great acute ness and ingenuity, but, it is scarcely necessary to add, not in any sense a `• plaine dis the apocalypse. In the dedication to king James VI. he gave his majesty some very plain advice regarding the propriety of reforming his " house, family, and court:" and on republishing the work he added a supplement, resolving "certain() doubts mooved by some well-affected brethren." About this time he seems to have devoted much of his time to the invention of warlike machines, but these inventions were never perfected, probably from motives of humanity. Like other eminent men of the time, Napier, though a strict Presbyterian, seems to have been a believer in astrology and divination, but there is no satisfactory proof that he ever practiced these arts. In 1596 he proposed the use of salt as a fertilizer of land, an idea which, though scouted at the time, is now generally received. Another large blank in his history here occurs,
and terminates in 1614, at which date he first gave to the world his famous invention of logarithms (q.v.), in a treatise entitled Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonic Descriptio (CO; Edin.). This was followed by another work, Randologice, sea numerationis per Virgules Mil duo (Edin. 1617), detailing an invention for simplifying and shortening the processes of multiplication and division. ,See NAPIER'S BONES. He also prepared a second work on logarithms, showing their mode of construction and application, with an appendix containing several propositions of spherical trigonometry, and those formulte which are now known by his name. This work was published after his death by his son Robert, tinder the title of 2,firifiei Logarithmorum Canonic Constructio, etc., Taus accessere Prop o•itiones ad Triangala splaerica faciliore calculo resotrenda, etc. (Edin. 1619), and occurs along with the Canonzs Desez.iptio. The latter work is included in baron Masere's exten sive collection, the Scriptores Loparithmiei (Loud. 1808). Napier's eldest son. Archibald, was raised to the peerage as the first lord Napier by Charles I. in 1627, and his descendants still hear the title. Two lives of Napier have been published, the one by the earl of Buchan (1787), and the other by Mr. Mark Napier (1834).