ALLIGATION, the name of a method of solving all questions that relate to the mixture of one ingredient with another. Though writers on arithmetic generally make alligation a branch of that science; yet, as it is plainly nothing more than an application of the common properties of numbers, in order to solve a few questions that occur in particular branches of business, we chuse rather to keep it distinct from the science of arithmetic.
Alligation is generally divided into medial or alternate.