ANNALS 
OF 
PHILOSOPHY. 
JANUARY, 1817. 
ARTICLE I, 
Account of the Improvements in Physical Science during the Year 
1816. By Thomas Thomson, M.D. F.R.S. 
I HAVE endeavoured since the commencement of the Annals or 
Philosophy to lay before the British public every chemical fact that 
has come to my knowledge, in whatever part of the world the dis- 
covery took place. But the great number of original communica- 
tions, which nearly fill this Journal, preclude the possibility of trans- 
lating the papers published on the continent in sueh numbers as I 
originally intended. The object of the historical sketch, with which 
each new year of the Annals commences, is to supply the place of 
this omission. It costs me considerable trouble; but it saves a great 
deal to the reader, by giving him in a small compass what, when 
originally published, occupied many volumes. The chemical and 
mineralogical department of this sketch will always be found the 
most complete. 1 compose them first, and endeavour to leave 
nothing out. The extent to which I can carry the other sciences 
depends upon the room still left after these are completed. On the 
danse occasion I find myself so much at a loss for room, that I 
ave thought it right to omit every thing contained in the Philoso- 
phical Transactions, and in the Transactions of the Geological 
Society, for 1816. These omissions I propose to supply afterwards, 
by giving an analysis of the contents of those volumes, 
I. MATHEMATICS. 
Perhaps in strict propriety I ought to omit the mention of mathe- 
matical papers; but as the list of them which I give occupies but 
Voi. IX. N° I. A 
