Marchant Tables

This notebook contains examples of eighty-odd mathematical tables on cards, as published and distributed by Marchant Calculating Machine Company and its successor firm, Smith Corona Marchant. Copyright dates on the tables range from 1937 through 1958. Most of the tables are listed at the front of the book in an undated three-page “Index of Current Marchant Tables.”

This listing divides the tables into nineteen categories. These include interest, reverse interest, decimal equivalents, time, two forms of discount, mark-ups, and payroll. Specialized tables relate to insurance, lumber, petroleum and petroleum oils, and foreign exchange. Also included are tables for such mathematical functions as square roots, cube roots, fifth roots, trigonometric functions, and interpolation. Most of the tables are printed. Two tables of natural trigonometric functions, produced in 1941 from work of R. A. Davis, are reproduced from handwritten entries.

The last table in the series is entitled “Table of 5-Point Lagrangean [sic] Interpolation Coefficients.” This is an advance copy of a portion of a more extensive set of tables then in preparation by the Mathematical Tables Project of the Works Projects Administration for the City of New York. This table runs for several pages. It is based on a table issued by the War Department in June 1941, but is undated.

Reference: I. I. Rhodes and H. E. Salzer,”Errata - R. A. Davis, Table of Sines and Radians, Oakland, California, 1941, Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation, 1, 1943, p. 124.

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