BY W. JONES, MATHEMATICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL INSTRUMENT MAKER.
_The editor esteems it his indispensable duty, to point out the several improvements which have been made in this work, in order to render it still more acceptable to the public._
_The whole has been carefully revised--many typographical errors corrected--numerous additions and emendations from the author’s own copy incorporated, and some superfluities rejected. Wherever any ambiguity occurred, the editor has endeavoured to elucidate the passage, observing due caution not to misconceive the idea which the author meant to inculcate. A more regular arrangement has been attempted, and occasional notes subjoined: in these, and in other parts of the work, it has been the editor’s primary object to ascertain facts, not to decide peremptorily. Should he in any instance have erred, he can assure the candid critic, that he shall experience a most sensible pleasure in conviction._
Accounts of the latest improvements which have been made in the construction of microscopes, particularly the lucernal.
A description of the glass, pearl, &c. micrometers, as made by Mr. Coventry, and others.
An arrangement and description of minute and rare shells.
A descriptive list of a variety of vegetable seeds.
Instructions for collecting and preserving insects, together with directions for forming a cabinet.
A copious list of objects for the microscope.
A list of Mr. Custance’s fine vegetable cuttings.
_With respect to the plates, three new engravings are introduced, viz._
PLATE IV. Exhibiting the most improved compound microscopes, with their apparatus.
PLATE XIV. Microscopical figures of minute and rare shells.
PLATE XV. Microscopical figures of a variety of vegetable seeds.
_Many additional figures have been inserted in other plates, and a number of errors in the references corrected._
_A complete list of the plates and a more extensive index are also added._
_It has been generally understood, that the author intended to have published this edition in octavo; but, the impropriety of adopting that mode must appear evident, for the very reason assigned by the author himself in the concluding part of his preface. If the plates are liable to sustain damage by folding them into a quarto, they would have been subjected to far greater injury by being doubled into an octavo size, besides, being extremely incommodious for reference. As the work now appears, the purchaser may either retain the plates in the separate volume, or, without much inconvenience, if properly guarded, have them bound with the letter press._