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THE

MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE,

AND

SCHOOL OF ARTS:

INTENDED TO ILLUSTRATE THE MOST USEFUL, NOVEL, AND INTERESTING PARTS

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PREFACE.

THREE years have now elapsed since this Magazine first made its appearance. It has been conducted throughout with care and energy, and the undiminished, nay increasing demand for it, is the best evidence that our endeavours have met with approbation.

This continued prosperity of our unaspiring little work cannot be attributed to fortuitous circumstances. The year of the publication of our first volume, indeed, was ushered in by great, sudden, and unexpected discoveries in science and art-Photogtaic Drawing and the Daguerreotype being among them. The second volume, in like manner, tras simultaneous with the Electro-type, Electro-magnetic movements of various kinds, and other equally interesting matters. The last year, on the contrary, has been most barren in discoveries. The meeting of the British Association was admittedly a failure; the Royal Society has produced nothing of interest; the Philosophical Periodicals have been most unfruitful; Mechanical and Manufacturing genius has invented little of public importance; the boasted German and Russian Electro-magnetic Machines are decidedly impracticable; and even the Academie des Sciences at Paris, that is generally so much on the alert in matters of discovery, has been vapid and uninteresting.

With all these discouraging circumstances, attended by a complete stagnation and mistrust in the book trade, still we have steadily pursued our wonted course; and it is no small gratification to reflect upon the steady support we have continually received from 3 Public. Every thing new and really valuable we have inserted, and every thing of pasing public inquiry we have explained. Yet should our Friends have seen articles ching imaginary inventions in the public papers, and wondered why those articles have not appeared with us; we can tell them, that paragraphs in works which are not scientific re not always to be depended upon, thus we should oftentimes quote, and have immediately afterwards to contradict. If such accounts are true in themselves, it is impossible that can at all times procure the information requisite to make them valuable; inventors keep

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