NEPER, or NAPIER (John), baron of Merchiston in Scotland, whose high attainments in many branches of useful literature render his memory valuable, was born in 1550. He had a peculiar turn to mathematical investigations and useful inventions: among the latter may be ranked that instrument called Neper's Rods or Bones, to facilitate the multiplication and division of large numbers; and his invention of logarithms have spread his fame throughout the world. This discovery was contained in his Canon mirabilis Logarithmorum, dedicated to prince Charles, and published in 1614. In his Rabdologia, published in 1616, he mentions another species of those numbers; when, finding his health declining, he engaged Mr Briggs to prosecute that useful laborious scheme. Besides his abilities in these calculations, he is said to have wrote an Exposition on the Revelation: an undertaking in which his rare talents in reason and computation could however afford him no advantages; nor is he remembered by it. He died in 1622.