C. S. Peirce and De Morgan on the four-colour conjecture (Q1239149)

Recently, a reference to the four-colour problem was discovered in an unsigned book review appearing in the journal Athenaeum, 1860. (For the details, see a letter from \textit{J. Wilson} [Historie math. 3, 329--330 (1976)].) The author of the article was Augustus De Morgan, and it is the first known printed reference to the four-colour problem. In the present note, the author's remark that De Morgan's article was read by C. S. Peirce, who subsequently made several attempts to solve the problem. Also, the article is presumably the `somewhere' mentioned by Cayley in his 1879 paper. Thus an important missing link in the story of the four-colour problem has been found. The new information will be incorporated in a revision of the authors' book [\textit{N. L. Biggs, E. Keith Lloyd, R. J. Wilson}, Graph Theory 1736--1936 (1976; Zbl 0335.05101)].