4-21-12. Thomas Craig to H. Poincaré

Jan. 21 1886

American Journal of Mathematics

Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore

My dear Friend,

Excuse my long delay in answering your letter. The death of my wife’s mother has caused me to be absent from the city for several days. I enclose a circular letter that I am sending to American & Canadian mathematicians.¹¹endnote: ¹ The circular accompanying Craig’s letter to Poincaré, with the dateline “Baltimore, January, 1886”, reads as follows: “Dear Sir: – It is proposed by the Société Mathématique de France to make a complete Mathematical Bibliography, and as a member of the Society, I have been requested to furnish a list of the articles and treatises published by American mathematicians.
The undertaking is one of great magnitude, and the result will be of the greatest value. Will you be kind enough to send me a list of your published papers and treatises prepared on paper of this size, the notices to be of the same style as the accompanying specimen and only one title on each sheet. I will forward the sheets to Paris immediately upon receipt of them.
Hoping to receive an early and favorable reply, I am, Very respectfully, Thomas Craig
– Associate professor of Mathematics in the Johns Hopkins University” The verso of Craig’s circular reads as follows: “T. Craig – On a Certain Class of Linear Differential Equations – American Journal of Mathematics – Vol. VIII – Treating of a class of Linear Differential Equations whose fundamental integrals are the successive derivatives of one or more functions.” Tell me what [to] do in the case of articles written by Europeans and published in the American Journal e.g. your memoir, Hermite’s, Cayley’s etc. Also what shall I do about American articles published in Europe. I have one or two in Crelle, so has Professor Newcomb etc. I have been in doubt how to act in such cases. I am delighted that you are going to send me “une petite note pour l’American Journal et plus tard un mémoire plus important”. I told President Gilman that you were about to send a note and a memoir and he was very much pleased.²²endnote: ² Daniel Coit Gilman (1831–1908) served as the first president of Johns Hopkins University from 1876 to 1891. I will insert them in the Journal immediately [when] they arrive, and will promise to take even greater care with the proofs than I did before.

Yours most sincerely,

Thomas Craig

ALS 3p. Collection particulière, Paris 75017.

Time-stamp: " 9.06.2022 21:27"

Notes

1 The circular accompanying Craig’s letter to Poincaré, with the dateline “Baltimore, January, 1886”, reads as follows: “Dear Sir: – It is proposed by the Société Mathématique de France to make a complete Mathematical Bibliography, and as a member of the Society, I have been requested to furnish a list of the articles and treatises published by American mathematicians. The undertaking is one of great magnitude, and the result will be of the greatest value. Will you be kind enough to send me a list of your published papers and treatises prepared on paper of this size, the notices to be of the same style as the accompanying specimen and only one title on each sheet. I will forward the sheets to Paris immediately upon receipt of them. Hoping to receive an early and favorable reply, I am, Very respectfully, Thomas Craig – Associate professor of Mathematics in the Johns Hopkins University” The verso of Craig’s circular reads as follows: “T. Craig – On a Certain Class of Linear Differential Equations – American Journal of Mathematics – Vol. VIII – Treating of a class of Linear Differential Equations whose fundamental integrals are the successive derivatives of one or more functions.”
2 Daniel Coit Gilman (1831–1908) served as the first president of Johns Hopkins University from 1876 to 1891.