Thanks for these remarks Stephen. IIUC you're speculating that the relevant constraint they faced was that multiplication was very burdensome. I agree; it seem

Thanks for these remarks Stephen. IIUC you're speculating that the relevant constraint they faced was that multiplication was very burdensome. I agree; it seems plausible this was the reason they found this an attractive approach. Also agreed about Newton-Raphson; that was a thinko on my part. It would be an unusual situation if NR were the right tool for estimating log.