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(LECTURES)

UPON

NATURAL HISTORY,

GEOLOGY, CHEMISTRY, THE APPLICATION OF STEAM,

AND INTERESTING DISCOVERIES IN THE ARTS.

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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1833,

BY LILLY, WAIT, Colman, and Holden,

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

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IN so extensive a field as this work opens, offering a condensed view of the prevalent systems and leading facts in science, it cannot be expected, that I should presume to offer claims to general originality. The text book, which I have chiefly followed, is a French work, 'Lettres a Sophie,' in 4 volumes 12mo, 9th edition, 1825, Paris; by Aimé Martin; and what is taken from that work is rather compilation and paraphrase, than exact translation. I have wholly omitted more than half the matter, a considerable part of which is in French verse, scarcely translatable into our language. Many of the opinions and doctrines of the author have yielded to more recent experiment and observation. I have been neither an incurious, nor indolent observer of nature myself; and, in pursuing his themes, I have interposed my own correlative remarks, wherever I thought I could offer additional illustration; and for the style and manner, I alone am answerable. The author of these letters himself compiled from Bacon, Descartes, Newton, Herschell, Lavoisier, Buffon, Fontenelle, Linneus, Spallanzani, St Pierre, Chateaubriand, Patrin, and numerous naturalists, voyagers and travellers. This work contains a synopsis of their best thoughts upon their favorite subjects. I will add in this connection, that, where I have not been able to find any corresponding names in English

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