himself in Mathematics and Physical Science, as necessary for the greater scientific 

 results of a second travel in Africa, the Author has had occasion to read the greater 

 number of the French works on the elementary parts of mathematics, and to com- 

 pare them with our own. He was astonished to find that England, which has 

 produced Harriot, Wallis, Barrow, and Newton who may be considered as the 

 father of analysis ; that England, possessing at the present moment so many illus- 

 trious men of science, does not afford elementary books enabling students to read 

 the works of Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, Legendre, Poisson, and the later English 

 publications, without being arrested by difficulties every moment. 



He is aware that the illustrious Professors of Mathematics at our Universities, 

 supply that in their lectures which is wanting in their books ; but he recollects also, 

 from experience, that there are a great number of students throughout the three 

 kingdoms, and especially in our colonies, who are denied the enviable advantages 

 of attending University lectures. 



In the hope of remedying this inconvenience in some degree, that is as far as his 

 limited means permit, the Author is induced to publish a course of Algebra, assem- 

 bling and connecting the materials scattered through the works of La Croix, Bour- 

 don, Boisbertrand, Gamier, etc. etc. 



He is not so presumptuous as to believe that this Essay is the best the subject 

 admits of, but he will feel grateful for every candid critic, sufficiently recom- 

 pensed if it leads to the production of a better work on the same subject ; his sole 

 object being to offer something useful to his countrymen. 



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