X

PREFACE.

and practical applications to the Cases of gunnery, in a greatvariety of useful instances.

Tract xxxviii, being the last, contains a miscellaneouscollection of practical questions, illustrating several of theprinciples in the preceding Tracts, with the solutions atlarge.

Such are the outlines of a work, which is the result ofmany years assiduous study and persevering research ; andwhich it is presumed will be found to contain several newarticles, on civil and military science, that may be deemedof national importance.

It is, in all probability, the last original work that I mayever be able to offer to the notice of the Public, and I amtherefore the more anxious that it should be found worthy oftheir acceptance and regard. To their kind indulgence, in-deed, is due whatever success I may have experienced, bothas an Author and Teacher for more than half acentury: andit is no small satisfaction to reflect, that my humble endea-vours, during that period, have not been wholly unsuccessfulin the diffusion of useful knowledge.

To the same liberal encouragement of the Public must like-wise be ascribed, in a great measure, the means of the com-fortable retirement which I now enjoy, towards the close ofa long and laborious life: and for which I have every reasonto be truly thankful.

London ,July, 1812.

CHA. HUTTON.