PREFACE. 



THE present work owes its existence mainly to the difficulty of 

 finding a good modern text-book suited to the requirements of the 

 American student. 



In England it is customary to take a thorough course in elementary 

 mechanics (comprising plane statics and kinetics of a particle) before 

 entering upon the study of higher mathematics ; and there is no 

 lack of works of this character (Loney, Macgfegor, Selby, Thomson 

 and Tait's Elements, Hicks, Robinson, Browne, Blaikie, Parkinson, 

 Wormell, Lodge, Laverty, etc.), some of which are very well adapted 

 to the purpose. A good course in analytic geometry and the differ- 

 ential and integral calculus will then prepare the student for reading 

 the more advanced English works on analytical statics (Todhunter, 

 Minchin, Routh) and rigid dynamics (Williamson and Tarleton, Routh, 

 Thomson and Tait, Price, Besant, etc.). A similar arrangement is 

 presupposed by most of the French and German treatises. 



In many American colleges and universities, however, the student 

 takes up the study of mechanics at a later stage, after having acquired 

 a knowledge of the elements of higher mathematics. A somewhat 

 different treatment of the subject of mechanics is required in this* 

 case. 



The present volume, which is devoted to kinematics, forms the first 

 of three parts of nearly equal extent. The second part, after an intro- 

 duction to dynamics in general, takes up statics ; it will appear in the 

 fall of this year. The third part, which will be ready in the fall of 

 1894, is devoted to kinetics. 



While the work is intended, first of all, as an introduction to the 



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