Works
As a mathematician he is known chiefly by his work on ‘The Anti-Logarithmic Canon’ and ‘The Mathematical Miscellany.’
In 1742 Dodson published ‘The Anti-Logarithmic Canon. Being a table of numbers consisting of eleven places of figures, corresponding to all Logarithms under 100,000, with an Introduction containing a short account of Logarithms.’ This was a unique tabulation until 1849. The canon had been actually calculated, it is said, by Walter Warner and John Pell, in the period 1630 to 1640. Its provenance was that Warner had left it to Herbert Thorndike, at whose death it came to Richard Busby, and finally was bought for the Royal Society; but for some years it has been lost. In a letter of Pell's, 7 August 1644, written to Sir Charles Cavendish, it is said that Warner became bankrupt, and Pell surmises that the manuscript would be destroyed by the creditors in ignorance.
In 1747 Dodson published ‘The Calculator … adapted to Science, Business, and Pleasure.’ It is a large collection of small tables, with some seven-figure logarithms. This he dedicated to William Jones. The same year he started the publication of ‘The Mathematical Miscellany,’ containing analytical and algebraic solutions of a large number of problems in various branches of mathematics. His preface to vol. i is dated 14 January 1747, the title giving 1748. This volume is dedicated to de Moivre, and a second edition was issued by his publisher in 1775. Vol. ii (1753) is dedicated to David Papillon, and contains a contribution by Abraham de Moivre. Vol. iii (1755) he dedicated to Macclesfield and the Royal Society. This volume is devoted to problems relating to annuities, reversions, insurances, leases on lives, etc.. His Accountant, or a Method of Book-keeping, was published 1750, with a dedication to Macclesfield. In 1751 he edited Edmund Wingate's Arithmetic, which had previously been edited by John Kersey and then by George Shelley.
Another work, An Account of the Methods used to describe Lines on Dr. Halley's Chart of the terraqueous Globe, showing the variation of the magnetic needle about the year 1756 in all the known seas, &c. By Wm. Mountaine and James Dodson, about isogons, was published in 1758, after Dodson's death.
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