\y2 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1715. 



lakes, might at the first beginning of things, in some measure contain salt, so 

 as to disturb the proportionahty of the increase of saltness in them, I will not 

 dispute it : but shall observe that such a supposition would by so much contract 

 the age of the world, within the date to be derived from the foregoing argu- 

 ment, which is chiefly intended to refute the ancient notion, some have of 

 late entertained, of the eternity of all things; though perhaps by it the world 

 may be found much older than many have hitherto imagined. 



j^ccount of Books, viz. 1. Linear Perspective, or a New Method of represent- 

 ing justly all Manner of Objects, &c. By Brook Taylor, LL. D. and 

 R. S. Sec. 8vo. London, 1715. N° 344, p. 300. 



The author of this book, finding the art of perspective very imperfect in 

 the books that have hitherto been published on that subject, thought it worth 

 his while to consider the whole matter anew; and from a careful examination 

 of the principles this art is founded on, he has endeavoured to establish some 

 theorems, by means of which the practice of it might be rendered more ge- 

 neral and easy. In order to this, at first sight he found it necessary to make 

 use of new terms of art ; the old ones seeming not to be expressive enough of 

 what is meant by them, and being adapted to too confined an idea of the prin- 

 ciples of this art. In the old perspective, the chief regard is had to the ground 

 plane, that is, the plane of the horizon ; from whence is derived the horizontal 

 line, and by means of that line the representations of some figures are found 

 by good simple constructions. But then the figures in all other planes are drawn 

 by reducing them to the horizontal plane by means of perpendiculars, which is 

 an inartificial round-about way, makes a great confusion of lines, and is not 

 capable of so much exactness. This confined way of treating this subject, pro- 

 ceeds from the strong possession the mind is bred up in, of the notions of 

 upwards and downwards, which makes one apt to refer all other irregular posi- 

 tions to those principal ones. But the minds of all artists should be drawn as 

 much as can be from such confined ways of thinking, and they should be 

 taught to accustom themselves, as much as may be, to consider nature in its 

 general view, without minding those particular relations which things have with 

 respect to themselves. For this reason our author has rejected the term of 

 horizontal line, because it confines the mind too much to the particular consi- 

 deration of the horizontal plane; but he considers all planes alike, and all figures 

 as they are in themselves, without considering their relation to us; leaving the 

 artist to do that, when he comes to apply the general rules of practice to any 

 particular design. 

 This treatise is very short, because the author has confined himself only to 



