A COURSE .OF MATHEMATICS, DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF THE OFFICERS AND CADETS, OF THE Royal Military College. By ISAAC DALBY, VOL. II. THE THIRD EDITION, LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, BY W. GLENDINNING, 25, HATTON GARDEN. Dalby PREFACE TO VOL. II. THE subjects composing this Volume are Algebra, Conic Sections, Mechanics, Hydrostatics, and Pneumatics. But the particulars are enumerated in the table of contents which renders a detail in this place unnecessary. We therefore have little more than a few detached observations to offer by way of preface. After Fractions, the arrangement in Algebra is not exactly similar to that usually found in more extensive treatises. Some reasons are given for a particular deviation (p. 81.) And it is from considerable experience in teaching that we were induced to prefer the order in which the several rules or parts follow one another. Learners however, generally consider the management of radical quantities as the most difficult task in Algebra: a master therefore may sometimes perceive the necessity of bringing a student forward to a particular extent in Quadratic Equations before he enters upon Surds. The different series to which Art. 170- 179 are an introduction, may be reckoned among the speculative parts of Mathematics. The principal theorem in the Arithmetic of Infinites however, is deduced from the Differential Method, (Art. 177); the application of this formula has been of considerable use in the subsequent part of the volume. In treating of the Conic Sections the fundamental property or the equation of each curve is derived from the solid after A 2 |