A Swiss clockmaker in the employ of the Duke of Hesse-Kassel, first conceived of logarithms. The method of natural logarithms was first propounded in 1614, in a book entitled Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio, by John Napier (c. 1550 - 1618; Latinized Neperus), Baron of Merchiston in Scotland, four years after the publication of his memorable invention. This method contributed to the advance of science, and especially of astronomy, by making some difficult calculations possible. Prior to the advent of calculators and computers, it was constantly used in surveying, navigation, and other branches of practical mathematics. It supplanted the more involved prosthaphaeresis, which relied on trigonometric identities, as a quick method of computing products. Besides their usefulness in computation, logarithms also fill an important place in the higher theoretical mathematics.
At first, Napier called logarithms "artificial numbers" and antilogarithms "natural numbers". Later, Napier formed the word logarithm, a portmanteau, to mean a number that indicates a ratio: λoγoς (logos) meaning ratio, and αριθμoς (arithmos) meaning number. Napier chose that because the difference of two logarithms determines the ratio of the numbers for which they stand, so that an arithmetic series of logarithms corresponds to a geometric series of numbers. The term antilogarithm was introduced in the 1800s and, while convenient, its use was never widespread.