PROFESSOR OF MECHANICAL SCIENCE, GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF MINES, LONDON: REEVE AND BENHAM, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1851. PR E F A CE. INTIMATE association with those institutions which are devoted to the diffusion of useful knowledge, has led to a conviction that, notwithstanding the increasing desire manifested amongst their members to cultivate an acquaintance with physical science, the means has not been afforded by which this important study might be facilitated. Impressed with the idea that it is quite possible to render every truth intelligible by the most simple language that it is practicable to teach physical science so far as to render all the great deductions from observation and experiment satisfactorily clear, without encountering the difficulty of mathematics,-this Elementary Treatise has been written. It is hoped that it may be found useful in furnishing an appropriate introduction to those works of our great natural philo sophers, to which we are indebted for a knowledge of the laws which regulate the great phenomena of nature. Convinced that for a numerous class most of the works on natural philosophy are of too abstruse and technical a character, demanding an amount of previous education which few of our schools have hitherto afforded, this Elementary Treatise has been attempted. The design is, to give accurate information on every important fact connected with Physics; to explain the experimental evidence by which each law has been developed; and, by avoiding mathematical details,—while accepting the proofs they afford, -to place clearly the deductions from physical investigation before those to whom the higher-class treatises are sealed books, to which it is hoped the Elementary Physics may prove an appropriate introduction. |