is this correct?

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

I would like to know if in the following text both options would be correct:

That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call length, Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference/referring to three planes, each at right angles to the others.

2

Other than the capitalisation of ‘space’, the sentence looks okay to me, though ‘depth’ seems more mathematically correct to me than ‘thickness’.

3

So either reference or referring would match, right?

4

yes