VOL. I.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 89 



J7i Account of two Boohs lately published in London. N" 15, p. 261. 



I. Euclidis Elementa Geometrica, novo ordine ac methodo demonstrata. In this 

 edition the anonymous author pretends to have rendered these elements more 

 expeditious, by bringing into one place what belongs to one and the same sub- 

 ject; comprising, 1 . What Euclid had said of lines, straight, intersecting one 

 another, and parallel. 2. What he has demonstrated of a single triangle, and 

 of triangles compared one with another. 3. What of the circle, and its pro- 

 perties. 4. What of proportions in triangles and other figures. 5. What of 

 quadrats and rectangles, made of lines diversely cut. 6. What of plane super- 

 ficies. 7. What of solids. After which follow the problems. The definitions 

 are put to each chapter as need requires. The axioms, because they are few, 

 and almost every where necessary, are not thus distributed in chapters. The 

 postulata are not subjoined to the axioms, but reserved for the problems, the 

 author considering that they being practical principles, had only place in pro- 

 blems. 



II. The English Vine-yard vindicated. The author (Mr. John Rose, his 

 Majesty's gardener at his royal garden in St. James's) in this small tract directs 

 Englishmen in the choice of the fruit, and the planting of vineyards, hereto* 

 fore very frequently cultivated, though of late almost neglected by them. 



Hypothesis on the Flux and Reflux of the Sea. Addressed to Mr. 

 Boyle by Dr. John Wallis. N" 16, p. 263. 



You were earnest with me, when you last went hence, that I would put in 

 writing what at divers times, for these three or four years, I have been dis- 

 coursing with yourself and others concerning the common centre of gravity of 

 the earth and moon, for the solving the phaenomena as well of the sea's ebbing 

 and flowing, as of some perplexities in astronomical observations of the places 

 of the celestial bodies. 



How much the world and the great bodies therein are managed according to 

 the laws of motion and static principles, and with how much more clearness 

 and satisfaction many of the more abstruse phaenomena have been solved oh 

 such principles, within this last century than formerly; I need not discourse to 

 you who are well versed in it. For since Galilaso, and after him Torricellio 

 and others, have applied mechanic principles to the solving of philosophical dif- 

 ficulties, natural philosophy is well known to have been rendered more intelli- 

 gible, and to have made a much greater progress in less than a hundred yearS;, 

 than before for many ages. 



VOL. I. M 



