PREFACE. 
I F care and attention demand fome regard in works of Sci- 
ence, this may be allowed to plead at leafl that humbler 
kind of merit. 
The Reader wdll be pleafed to know, that the Work now 
laid before him, has been printed and engraved more than a 
year ; and has been kept fo long unpublifhed, that truth and 
nature might appear in it, not only corredlly reprefented from 
particular objeds, but confirmed, afcertained, and univerfal. 
J claim no merit from this afiiduity : I owe it all, and more, 
(if it were pofiiblefor me to fhave fhewn more,) to the au- 
fpices under which this Work was begun, and to the patron- 
age by which it is continued. 
When we compare Nature with the reprefentations even of 
the mofl refpecled Authors, we fee fuch differences as ought to 
give us a very humble opinion of the befl human judgment. 
I hope many of their errors will be avoided here. They wrote 
often 
