Διὰ τί ἐν τῇ θαλάττῃ μᾶλλον νεῖν δύνανται ἢ ἐν τοῖς ποταμοῖς;

̓Αριστοτέλης.

CAMBRIDGE:

PUBLISHED BY DEIGHTONS;

SOLD BY

SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO.; AND GEORGE BELL, LONDON.

MDCCCXLVII.

4.4

PREFACE.

THE success which has within the last few years attended the publication of systematic collections of Examples in several departments of Natural Philosophy and Mathematics, has led me to entertain a belief that a like treatise on the mathematical doctrine of Fluids, would, if composed with a due reference to the necessities of students, be not without its utility. Having been accordingly induced to enter upon this work, I have proposed to myself to furnish the beginner with classes of Problems methodically arranged in elucidation of the various hydrostatical and hydrodynamical theorems ordinarily falling within the province of Academic study. In the fulfilment of this design I have endeavoured, as much as possible, to give to each branch of the subject a proportionate amount of illustration, in order that students, whether of higher or lower mathematical attainment, may be able to meet with a sufficient body of matter applicable to the condition of their knowledge. In carrying out this, my primary object, I have omitted no opportunity of introducing incidentally to the notice of the reader, by historical references, those remarkable memoirs and works of mathematical philosophers in which the first principles of the science of fluids and their most striking consequences were originally unfolded. This secondary purpose of my treatise I have been anxious to fulfil adequately, not only from a wish to enable the higher order of students to acquire more thorough information on particular questions than could have been communicated in accordance with my general design, but also from a conviction that an

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