'ON

SELECT SUBJECTS

IN

MECHANICS, HYDROSTATICS, PNEUMATICS,
OPTICS, AND ASTRONOMY,

BY JAMES FERGUSON, F.R.S.

A NEW AND IMPROVED EDITION,

ADAPTED TO THE PRESENT STATE OF SCIENCE,

les

C. F. PARTINGTON,

Of the London Institution, Author of an Historical and Descriptive Account of the
Steam Engine, yc. &c.

Philosophia mater omnium bonarum artium est. CICERO, i. Tusc.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG, 73, CHEAPSIDE;

R. GRIFFIN AND CO., GLASGOW; TEGG AND CO., DUBLIN: ALSO, J. AND
S. A. TEGG SYDNEY AND HOBART TOWN,

PUBLIC LIBRARY 100303

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS. 1898.

J. Haddon, Castle Street, Finsbury.

TO

JOHN L. ANDERDON, Esq.

DEAR SIR,

As a Patron and Friend to those branches of practical science by which our "Merchants have become as princes, and our Traffickers the honourable of the earth," allow me to offer, at the shrine of grateful regard, the following pages; which I do the more readily from the opportunity which it affords me of publicly stating how very sincerely

I am, DEAR SIR,

Your faithful

and obliged humble Servant,

CHARLES F PARTINGTON.

LONDON INSTITUTION,

January 1, 1825.

PREFACE.

EVER since the days of the LORD CHANCELLOR BACON, natural philosophy hath been more and more cultivated in England. THAT great genius first set out with taking a general survey of all the natural sciences, dividing them into distinct branches, which he enumerated with great exactness. He inquired scrupulously into the degree of knowledge already attained to in each, and drew up a list of what still remained to be discovered; this was the scope of his first undertakmg. Afterward he carried his views much farther and shewed the necessity of an experimental philosophy, a thing never before thought of. As he was a professed enemy to systems, he considered philosophy, no otherwise than as that part of knowledge which contributes to make men better and happier: he seems to limit it to the knowledge of things useful, recommending above all the study of nature, and shewing that no progress can be made therein, but by collecting facts and com paring experiments, of which he points out a great number proper to be made.