California Center for Population Research

Tables of Quarter-Squares, as discussed recently in this Journal, were once an alternative to logarithms for multiplication, but their use declined about the time that reasonably priced four-function calculators came into the market after 1900.H ere I offer additional references, including both earlier and more recent examples of those tables, and suggest some additional sources of their decline, notably their limitations on certain kinds of computations such as the Galton-Watson and other sociological calculations of the sort that George W.J ones, compiler of one key set of tables, taught at Cornell.