EDITORIAL NOTES. 



193 



having had occasion to teach large classes, the members of which were acquainted 

 with the elementary principles of the calculus, have sorely felt the need of a text- 

 book adapted to their students. The present work is an attempt on their part to 

 supply this want. It is believed that in very many institutions a similar condition 

 of affairs exists, and that there is a demand for a work of a grade intermediate 

 between that of the existing elementary texts and the advanced manuals of 

 physics. No attempt has been made to produce a complete manual or compen- 

 dium of experimental physics. The book is planned to be used in connection with 

 illustrated lectures, in the course of which the phenomena are demonstrated and 

 described. The authors have accordingly confined themselves to a statement of 

 principles, leaving the lecturer to bring to notice the phenomena based upon 

 them. In stating these principles free use has been made of the calculus, but no 

 demand has been made upon the student beyond that supplied by the ordinary 

 elementary college courses on this subject. Certain parts of physics contain real 

 and unavoidable difficulties. These have not been slurred over, nor have those 

 portions of the subject which contain them been omitted It has been thought 

 more serviceable to the student and to the teacher who may have occasion to use 

 the book to face such difficulties frankly, reducing the statements involving them to 

 the simplest form which is compatible with accuracy." The book has received at 

 the hands of the publishers, MacMillan & Co., New York, a worthy and substan- 

 tial form such as befits a work destined to be standard. 



