IV. PREFACE. 



posed the labor of furnishing correct answers might be greatly fa- 

 cilitated. This business is still in progress ; and nearly thirty papers 

 containing answers to the above-mentioned letter, have been re- 

 ceived. 



But this object is necessarily temporary and local. The main 

 design of the Institution is more widely extended. At its com- 

 mencement, a scheme was drawn up, reported, and approved, in 

 which the attention of its members was invited to every method of 

 improving the science, arts, and happiness of their country, so far 

 as the general state of its concerns, and their own leisure, would per- 

 3mt. Knowledge, both speculative and practical, was here, in all its 

 parts, recommended to their attention, as the great field, in which 

 they are requested to labor for the common benefit. No limit is 

 prescribed to the excursions of the mind, or to the employment of 

 observation. The elegant pursuits of literature and art, are left- 

 equally open to investigation with those, which are more severe. 

 In a word, it was intended to allure the ingenious, attentive, and 

 learned, to every public effort, which might be beneficial to their 

 fellow men. In compliance with this design, several papers on phi- 

 losophical subjects have been presented to the Academy. Among 

 them the following have been selected for publication. They con- 

 stitute only part of an intended volume ; and are sent out in boards, 

 that they may be conveniently preserved without injury, until the 

 volume shall be completed. 



