"[W]e find an excellent tract by James Bernoulli concerning the elastic curve, isochronous curves, the path of mean direction in the course of a vessel, the inverse method of tangents, &c. On most of these subjects he had treated already; but here he has given them with additions, corrections, and improvements. His scientific discussions are interspersed with some historical circumstances... This memoir concluded with an invitation to mathematicians, to sum up a very general differential equation, of great use in analysis. The solution which James Bernoulli had found of this problem, as well as those which Leibnitz and John Bernoulli gave of it, were published in the Leipsic Transactions."