PREFACE. 
perfecuon. Wedrrewood, by the same knowledge, advanced the arts of 
manufacturing porcelain ; neither must we forget Scheele’s discovery of oxy- 
genized muriatic acid, and Bethollet’s instructions in its application to the art 
of bleaching, nor Sequin’s and Davy’s chemical processes, which brought 
into perfection the art of tanning and preparation of leather. Chemistry 
is the foundation of those arts which furnish us with saline substances, 
an order of bodies highly useful in the affairs of common life. The success- 
ful manufactory of glass and various kinds of pottery depend upon a know- 
ledge of the nature of the substances employed, of their fusibility, as affect- 
ed by difference of proportion, or by the admixture of foreign substances, and 
of the means of regulating and measuring high degrees of heat. The 
chemist Bergman taught the most successful manufactory of brick and tiles. 
The art of malting is most successfully taught by the chemist. Dyeing and 
printing, as we have already shewn, are a tissue of chemical operations, and in 
short we should tire our readers by giving further illustration, to shew the 
utility of this department of our labours to medical men who are generally 
chemists. If national prosperity in Britain has arisen, in an eminent degree, 
from a superiority in the production of her arts, ought they, we enquire, to 
be neglected in British India? If not, we may boldly put the question — were 
we not, as having the welfare of India at heart, bound to promote it by a due 
discharge of our duty, by diffusing discoveries in the mechanical arts, among 
ihedical men as the means of communicating them to the natives ? 
The character of our work differs however from any other of a similar kind 
in the variety of its objects ; possessing as it does the character of Thom- 
son’s Records of Science, and Jameson’s Philosophical Journal, it also assumes 
the appearance of the Mechanics' Magazine, and Repertory of Inventions and 
Arts, as well as a Review of Science in India, 'and Register of new di'^coveries. 
Our reason for giving to our periodical this character proceeded from our 
knowledge, that recently six Scientific Journals were published in Great 
Britain : these have been reduced to two; one of which is published monthly 
in London, the other quarterly in Edinburgh. Since 1835, an additional work 
has been published, viz., “ Records of Science ; and since then, another 
on Popular Science: how long these last ably-conducted Journals will exist, 
it is impossible to say; but it is obvious, there must be some cause for 
this want of success in works of science. We ourselves believe the cause 
to have arisen, from the articles having generally been too abstruse and 
subtle. It is true, they were full of refined and speculative knowledge 
and recondite reasoning; replete with physical and metaphysical sub^ 
jects; but, then they were more adapted to the deep thinking philosopher, 
than to the general scientific reader : hence a want of subscribers. This 
failure in Britain of periodicals which have been devoted solely to the diffusion 
of general science, was a warning to us to consider well the grounds on which 
we anticipated success in our new undertaking. In a country like India where 
