TO THE PUBLIC. 



J. HE encouragement which the Proprietor of this work hag 

 experienced from the pubhc claims his warmest acknowledge- 

 ments. He therefore embraces the opportunity afforded him 

 by the commencement of a seventeenth volume, to return 

 his most grateful thanks for the favours conferred upon him j 

 and to assure his friends that the approbation bestowed on 

 his labours, while it gratifies his utmost wishes, will sti- 

 mulate him to secure, by new exertions, a continuance of 

 that patronage which it shall always be his ambition to ob- 

 tain. 



He engaged in the present undertaking that he might 

 contribute his mite towards the improvement of science, 

 by giving the earliest account of every thing new or curious 

 in those branches of knowledge, in particular, which form 

 the foundation of the most useful of our arts, and conse- 

 quently of the riches and prosperity of this country ; and 

 he has the satisfaction of reflecting that many things hav6 

 been communicated through the channel of this work which 

 without it might have still been buried in obscurity. As 

 a proof that this has been tlie case, he will here only ob- 

 serve, that the editors of a valuable scientific work, the 

 Encycloptcdia Britannic% have copied, in their supplement, 

 many articles from the Philosophical Magazine, and have 

 not been ashamed to acknowledge the source from which 

 they derived them. 



A 2 The 



