26 Mr, Herschel on a remarkable Application, &c. 



These theorems, however simple their algebraic expres- 

 sions, it must immediately be seen, become for the most part 

 complicated and unintelligible when geometrically enunciated. 

 They are indeed (if we may in any case be allowed to con- 

 sider a curve as unidentified with its equation) properties rather 

 of the equations of the conic sections, than of the curves them- 

 selves, — of a limited .number of disjoined points determined 

 according to a certain law, rather than a series of consecutive 

 ones composing a line. 



JOHN F. W. HERSCHEL. 



Slough, Oct. 6, 1812. 



