"There is a geometer," says Montucla,"to whom we must here give a place, and that is, Juste Byrge. That which chiefly renders him worthy of notice is the fact, that he invented and constructed tables of Logarithms simultaneously with Napier. Kepler represents him to us as a man of considerable genius, but thinking so modestly of his own inventions, and so indifferent about them, as to suffer them to be buried in the dust of his study; and, says Kepler, for that reason he never gave any thing to the public through the medium of the press.But Kepler was in error when he said so, and we shall proceed to unfold a tale... Notwithstanding what Kepler says of J. Byrge, bears witness to the fact, that... Byrge... did publish something relative to Logarithms. That author in a German work... Description of an Instrument very useful for perspective and drawing plans, (...1630, 4to,) says..."It was upon these principles that my dear brother-in-law and master, Juste Byrge, constructed, more than twenty years ago, a beautiful table of progressions, with their differences from 10 to 10, calculated to 9 places, and which he caused to be printed at Prague in 1620, so that the invention of Logarithms is not Neper's, but was made by Juste Byrge long before him."