xc TO THE READER 



Now although it neither were their Hopes, or in their 

 prospect to consummate a 'Design requiring so mighty <^fids, 

 (inviron'd as they have been with these Prejudices) yet 

 have they not at all desisted from the Enterprise ; but rather 

 than so Noble and Illustrious an Undertaking should not 

 proceed for want of some generous and industrious Spirits 

 to promote the WorJ^ ; they have themselves submitted to 

 those mean Imployments, of digging in the very Quarry ; yea 

 even and of making 'Brick where there was no Straw, but 

 what they gleaned, and lay dispersed up and down : Nor 

 did they think their Pains yet ill bestow 1 d, if through the 

 assiduous Labour, and a Train of continual Experiments, 

 they might at last furnish, and leave solid and uncorrupt 

 Materials to a succeeding, and more grateful *Age, for the 

 building up a 'Body of real and substantial Philosophy, which 

 should never succumb to Time, but with the l^uines of 

 ^{ature, and the World it self. 



In order to this, how many, and almost innumerable have 

 been their Tryals and Experiments, through the large and 

 ample Field both of *Art and Jfature ? We call our 

 Journals, ^Registers, (Correspondence, and Transactions, to wit- 

 ness ; and may with modesty provoke all our Systematical 

 ^Methodists, O^atural Histories, and Pretenders hitherto extant 

 from the beginning of Letters, to this period, to shew us so 

 ample, so worthy and so useful a Collection. 'Tis a Fatality 

 and an Injury to be deplored, that those who give us hard 

 words, will not first vouchsafe impartially to examine these 

 particulars ; since all Ingenuous Spirits could not but be 

 abundantly satisfied, that this Illustrious Assembly has not 

 met so many Tears purely for Speculation only ; though I 

 take even that to be no ignoble Qulture of the {Mind, or 

 time mispent for Persons who have so few Friends, and 

 slender Obligations, to those who should Patronize and 

 Encourage them : But they have aimed at greater things, and 



