Obser vations, and Harr ioCs MSS. 315 
The Delegates of the Clarendon Press, to whose care the 
MSS. had been consigned, were desirous that they should be 
published without delay ; and, with this view, they earnestly re' 
quested me to examine the papers, and favour them with ad ac- 
count of their state and merit. Having intimated my compli- 
ance,. the MSS. consisting of two bundles, were put into my 
hands, and the following are copies' of the reports which I drew 
up upon them. 
The following are the titles of the papers contained in the 
bundle first examined. 
1. uTeoTd^m : seu De Spatii resectione : Propositio 
generalis ; ex Lib. 7. Pappi. 
% De centro gravitatis pyramidis. 
3. Ptolomaicum elementum de compositione rationum. 
4. Theoremata ad subteiisas periferiarum. 
5. Lemmata. 
6. Problemata. 
7. De Parabola, 
8. De centro gravitatis trianguli. 
9. De centro gravitatis pas'abolae. 
10. De Asymptotis. 
11. De reflectione corporum rotundorum. 
These papers, excepting the last, are in no point of view fit 
for publication. The greatest part of them consist of detached 
and unfinished explanations of the authors which he read ; be- 
gun, according to all appearance, with the design of satisfying 
his own mind upon the subject before him, and dropped abrupt- 
ly as soon as this satisfaction was obtained. 
The 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, and 6th, of the above mentioned 
articles, are of this kind. The 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th articles, 
seem to have been entered upon with an intention of treating the 
subjects in a more perspicuous way than any which had been 
pursued before his time; and had he written the 7th and 10th 
with a vie^v to publication, there is every reason to suppose that 
in these two he would have succeeded in his design. In point 
of matter, as far as they extend, they are ingenious improve- 
ments upon Apollonius ; but the same improvements, fully and 
elegantly demonstrated, are to be found in Mydorgius's Conic 
Sections, published in 16S1. I should suppose that Harriot 
