PREFACE. V 



found in these collections are marked respectively, R. I, R. S, B. B, 

 and M. B: and where the same book is contained in more than one of 

 them, it has generally been marked as belonging to that which is most 

 accessible to the pablic,the preference being given to the library of the 

 Royal Institution. The articles printed in Italics are intended to form, 

 if taken separately, a complete catalogue of the books which are 

 quoted, without repetitions. The capital Roman numerals refer to 

 volumes, the smaller ones to divisions or sections, and the figures to 

 pages or years. 



The miscellaneous papers are reprinted with some corrections and 

 additions, but with no other alterations, of any kind, than might have 

 been made at the time when they were first })ublished: except the in- 

 sertion of the last section of the essay on the cohesion of fluids, which 

 consists of comparative extracts from a later memoir of Laplace, and 

 of remarks on the method of investigation which he has employed. 

 The abstract of the papers read before the Royal Society consists of 

 such potes, as have in general been inserted in their places among 

 the references; but as they constitute a continued account of the pro- 

 ceedings of the society for the whole of one season, it has been thought 

 most eligible to preserve them united in order of time. 



Welbeck Street, 30th March, 1807. 



