Ixxiv Votes. 
From France, he received many letters of the same character ; of which 
I can notice but a few, containing particular remarks upon it. 
Letter from M. Lacroiz, Paris, April 5th, 1830. 
“Your work, in the first place, is a good book on account of the numerous 
aids it affords for surmounting the difficulties that must be encountered in 
reading the original, in which La Place has passed over many of the inter- 
mediate and almost indispensable steps. Besides doing honor to the able, 
patient, and conscientious geometer, who has undertaken this great labor, 
your work, by the beauty of its typographical execution, does honor to the 
country where it is published. It is, perhaps, the most beautiful book that 
has appeared upon mathematics. The calculations in it possess the greatest 
neatness ; and the figures, which you have inserted in the body of the work 
itself, unite the greatest elegance with convenience. An undertaking so 
remarkable entitles you to the gratitude of those who are desirous of studying, 
to the bottom, the theory of the system of the world which rests upon 
transcendental mechanics ; and it makes us wish for the speedy publication 
of the remaining volumes.” 
In another letter, (July 1st, 1835,) M. Lacroix says: —‘‘I am more and 
more astonished at your continued perseverance in a task so laborious and 
extensive. I perceive, that you do not confine yourself to the mere text of 
your author and to the elucidations which it requires ; but you subjoin the 
parallel passages and subsequent remarks of those geometers who haye 
treated of the same subjects ; so that your work will embrace the actual state 
of science at the time of its publication.’? And in a previous letter, (January 
18th, 1833,) the same distinguished mathematician says: — “I have already had 
occasion to recommend it to a young professor at Lausanne, who requested 
of me some explanations of the work of La Place.”’ 
Letter from M. Legendre, Paris, July 2d, 1832. 
“ Your work is not merely a Translation with a Commentary ; I regard it as 
a new edition, augmented and improved, and such an one as might have come 
from the hands of the author himself, if he had consulted his true interest, 
that is, if he had been solicitously studious of being clear,”’ &c. 
Letter from M. Puissant to D. B. Warden, Esq. (by whom Dr. Bowditch’s 
work was transmitted), dated May 31st, 1835. 
“‘T have received through you the third volume of the beautiful and 
valuable Translation of the Mécanique Céleste of La Place, with which 
