ADVERTISEMENT. 
The Committee appointed by the Royal Society to direct the publication of the 
Philosophical Transactions , take this opportunity to acquaint the Public, that it fully 
appears, as well from the Council-books and Journals of the Society, as from repeated 
declarations which have been made in several former Transactions , that the printing of 
them was always, from time to time, the single act of the respective Secretaries till the 
Forty-seventh Volume; the Society, as a Body, never interesting themselves any further 
in their publication than by occasionally recommending the revival of them to some of 
their Secretaries, when, from the particular circumstances of their affairs, the Transactions 
had happened for any length of time to be intermitted. And this seems principally to 
have been done with a view to satisfy the Public that their usual meetings were then 
continued, for the improvement of knowledge and benefit of mankind, the great ends 
of their first institution by the Royal Charters, and which they have ever since steadily 
pursued. 
But the Society being of late years greatly enlarged, and their communications more 
numerous, it was thought advisable that a Committee of their members should be 
appointed, to reconsider the papers read before them, and select out of them such as 
they should judge most proper for publication in the future Transactions ; which was 
accordingly done upon the 26th of March 1752. And the grounds of their choice are, and 
will continue to be, the importance and singularity of the subjects, or the advantageous 
manner of treating them ; without pretending to answer for the certainty of the facts, 
or propriety of the reasonings, contained in the several papers so published, which must 
still rest on the credit or judgment of their respective authors. 
It is likewise necessary on this occasion to remark, that it is an established rule of 
the Society, to which they will always adhere, never to give their opinion, as a Body, 
upon any subject, either of Nature or Art, that comes before them. And therefore the 
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