EMBRACING ALSO

THE THEORY AND APPLICATION OF LOGARITHMS;

TOGETHER WITH

AN APPENDIX,

CONTAINING

INFINITE SERIES, THE GENERAL THEORY OF EQUATIONS, AND

THE MOST APPROVED METHODS OF RESOLVING

THE HIGHER EQUATIONS.

BY REV. DAVIS W. CLARK, A. M.,

PRINCIPAL OF AMENIA SEMINARY

NEW-YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-STREET.

1844.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1843 by HARPER & BROTHERS,

In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.

HOSP. BK. & NEWS. SOC.

P RE F А СЕ.

THE object of this treatise is to present to the student a full and systematic course of practical and theoretical elementary Algebra. With this object steadily in view, the author has made no effort for the display of mathematical genius, but has assiduously applied himself to the preparation of a text-book in the science. Believing that original discoveries are not best adapted to beginners, he has satisfied himself with the humble vocation of collecting, arranging, and illustrating the ample materials already provided. But it is due to himself to say that these materials have all been re-wrought, and not a few of them re-written several times. It has been a constant endeavour to make everything explicit, and also to exhibit it in the simplest possible form. By this means, the author has been enabled to embrace, within a comparatively small compass, a more comprehensive view of the science than can be found in any text-book on the subject now in use.

Among the works which have shared, and still share most largely in the patronage of the public, isolated parts or subjects are treated with great ability and clearness; but, in some instances, these works are remarkably deficient, so far as concerns any methodical arrangement of the subjects introduced, while also other subjects of great importance are omitted altogether. That these books force their way into public patronage is not surprising, when, on the other hand, those treatises which are systematic in the arrangement of topics are, in general, too theoretical and abstract for the convenience or profit of the beginner, or, indeed, of the practical algebraist.