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273 MATHEMATICS: WILSON AND MOORE A GENERAL THEORY OF SURFACES By Edwin B. Wilson and C. L. E. Moore DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS. MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Received by the Academy. March 23. 1916 Introduction.-Although the differential geometry of a k-dimensional spread or variety Vk, embedded in an n-dimensional space Sn, has received considerable attention, in particular in the case k n-1, the theory of surfaces V2 in the general Euclidean hyperspace Sn has been treated extensively by only three authors, Kommerell, Levi, and Segre,' of whom the last was interested in projective properties, the first two in ordinary metric relations. The theory of V2 in Sn does, however, offer points of contact with elementary differential geometry which are fully as illuminating as those developed in the case of V._- in S.. We have, therefore, undertaken to provide a general theory of surfaces which shall be independent of the number of dimensions of the containing = space. The first thing to be determined in entering on such an extended study is the method of attack. The available methods were four: (1) The ordinary elementary method of starting with the finite equations of the surface and trying to generalize well-known geometric properties. This was followed by Kommerell. (2) The more advanced method of Levi, which depends upon the finite equations only for calculating certain invariants I of rigid motion and further invariants (covariants) J of transformations of parameters upon the surface. (3) The vectorial method of Gibbs and others which bases the work upon the properties of the linear vector function expressing the relation between an infinitesimal displacement in the surface and the infinitesimal change in the unit normal (n-2)-space or the unit tangent plane. (4) The method of Ricci's absolute differential calculus, or Maschke's symbolic invariantive metho