The theory of determinants in the historical order of development, by Sir Thomas Muir.

CHAPTER VII.

RECURRENTS, FROM 1858 TO 1879.
No special form, save Alternants, has received so much attention
during the period now reached as Recurrents; and, what is more
striking, the signs of increase of interest taken in it are much more
conspicuous than in the case even of Alternants, the number of
writings being about five-fold what it was in the preceding period.
Doubtless part of this is due to the fact that the form lies near the
surface, so to say, in many parts of Algebra, so that examples are
easily got at,-one for every recurrence-formula known or unknown.
In this way not a small portion of the work spent on it seems somewhat futile, and we have consequently curtailed our reports as far
as was possible without doing injustice. As stated at the close of
our first chapter on the subject (Hist., i. p. 218) it is the recurrenceformula, not the recurrent, that is of prime importance.
Two of the writings here dealt with belong to the period of the
preceding volume; there also formal note should have been made
that Continuants, whose history begins in 1853 and is treated
separately, form a special class of Recurrents.
BRIOSCHI, F. (1858).
[Sulle funzioni Bernoulliane ed Euleriane. Annali di Mat., i. pp.
260-263; or Opere Mat., i. pp. 343-347.]
In this notice of no. 9 of Raabe's Mathematische Mittheilungen
(160 pp. Zurich, 1858) Brioschi gives in passing the result
a 1....
a, c.. 1..... 7 '
a2 a, a3~~ 2- C 21,
a a el eq~~~~~~~~~9