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OF

PHILOSOPHICAL, MECHANICAL,

CHEMICAL, AND AGRICULTURAL

DISCOVERIES:

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ACCOMPANIED, OCCASIONALLY, WITH

REMARKS ON THE MERITS OR DEFECTS OF THE RESPECTIVE
S. GOSNELL, Printer, Little Queen Street, Holborn.

PAPERS;

AND, IN SOME CASES, SHEWING TO WHAT OTHER USEFUL
PURPOSES INVENTIONS MAY BE DIRECTED, AND
DISCOVERIES EXTENDED, BEYOND THE

ORIGINAL VIEWS OF THEIR

AUTHORS.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY J. WYATT, AT THE REPERTORY-OFFICE

102, HATTON-GARDEN.

1806.

PREFACE.

Ar no very distant period this country was without a single periodical publication devoted exclusively either to Philosophical objects, or the improvement of Arts and Manufactures, unless indeed the occasional appearance of the Transactions of the Royal Society and the Society of Arts, and a few other similar works, can be so deemed.

In the year 1794, however, the Proprietors of the present undertaking, published the first number of a monthly work, the Repertory of Arts and Manufactures, which maintains a fair reputation at the present hour. That work receiving a high degree of public patronage, and the Proprietors confining themselves chiefly to the insertion of practical papers, others soon followed, both at home and abroad, of a more speculative or theoretic tendency, till at length the number and variety of scientific journals are become so great, as to require, for the conveniency of most readers, a separate work, to serve as a digested index to the whole.

This volume is the fruit of an attempt to that end, wherein the Editors believe will be found, in an abridged form, every article contained in those several publications; with such remarks on many of them as they venture to hope will not be thought insignificant.

Much care has been taken to render these abridgments perspicuous; yet, conscious of the difficulty of this task, the Editors fear they may not always be so satisfactory as the originals: but, references being given to the work from

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