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18588

OF

GEOMETRY AND TRIGONOMETRY.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF

A. M. LEGENDRE,

BY DAVID BREWSTER, LL. D.

REVISED AND ADAPTED TO THE COURSE OF MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES,

BY CHARLES DAVIES,

AUTHOR OF ARITHMETIC, ALGEBRA, PRACTICAL GEOMETRY, ELEMENTS OF
DESCRIPTIVE AND OF ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY, ELEMENTS OF
DIFFERENTIAL AND INTEGRAL CALCULUS, AND

SHADES SHADOWS, AND PERSPECTIVE.

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY A. S. BARNES & CO.
No. 51 JOHN STREET.

DAVIES' FIRST LESSONS IN ARITHMETIC-For Beginners.

DAVIES' ARITHMETIC-Designed for the use of Academies and Schools.
KEY TO DAVIES' ARITHMETIC.

DAVIES' UNIVERSITY ARITHMETIC-Embracing the Science of Num
bers and their numerous Applications.

KEY TO DAVIES' UNIVERSITY ARITHMETIC.

DAVIES' ELEMENTARY ALGEBRA-Being an introduction to the Science, and forming a connecting link between ARITHMETIC and ALGEBRA.

KEY TO DAVIES' ELEMENTARY ALGEBRA.

DAVIES' ELEMENTARY GEOMETRY.-This work embraces the elementary principles of Geometry. The reasoning is plain and concise, but at the same time strictly rigorous.

DAVIES' ELEMENTS OF DRAWING AND MENSURATION - Applied to the Mechanic Arts.

DAVIES' BOURDON'S ALGEBRA-Including STURM'S THEOREM-Being an abridgment of the Work of M. BOURDON, with the addition of practical examples. DAVIES' LEGENDRE'S GEOMETRY AND TRIGONOMETRY-Being an abridgment of the work of M. Legendre, with the addition of a Treatise on MENSURATION OF PLANES AND SOLIDS, and a Table of LOGARITHMS and LOGARITHMIC SINES.

DAVIES' SURVEYING-With a description and plates of the THEODOLITE, COMPASS, PLANE-TABLE, and LEVEL; also, Maps of the TOPOGRAPHICAL SIGNS adopted by the Engineer Department-an explanation of the method of surveying the Public Lands, and an Elementary Treatise on NAVIGATION.

DAVIES' ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY-Embracing the EQUATIONS OF
THE POINT AND STRAIGHT LINE-of the CONIC SECTIONS-of the LINE AND PLANE
IN SPACE; also, the discussion of the GENERAL EQUATION of the second degree, and
of SURFACES of the second order.

DAVIES' DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY-With its application to SPHER-
ICAL PROJECTIONS.

DAVIES' SHADOWS AND LINEAR PERSPECTIVE.

DAVIES' DIFFERENTIAL AND INTEGRAL CALCULUS.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1834, by CHARLES DAVIES, in the Clerk's
Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Southern District of
New York

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

GIFT OF THE

AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY

Sep. 8,1938

PREFACE

TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

THE Editor, in offering to the public Dr. Brewster's translation of Legendre's Geometry under its present form, is fully impressed with the responsibility he assumes in making alterations in a work of such deserved celebrity.

In the original work, as well as in the translations of Dr. Brewster and Professor Farrar, the propositions are not enunciated in general terms, but with reference to, and by the aid of, the particular diagrams used for the demonstrations. It is believed that this departure from the method of Euclid has been generally regretted. The propositions of Geometry are general truths, and as such, should be stated in general terms, and without reference to particular figures. The method of enunciating them by the aid of particular diagrams seems to have been adopted to avoid the difficulty which beginners experience in comprehending abstract propositions. But in avoiding this difficulty, and thus lessening, at first, the intellectual labour, the faculty of abstraction, which it is one of the primary objects of the study of Geometry to strengthen, remains, to a certain extent, unimproved. «