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OF

GEOMETRY AND TRIGONOMETRY.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF

A. M. LEGENDRE,

MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE AND OF THE LEGION OF HONOUR, and of THE ROYAL
SOCIETIES OF LONDON AND EDINBURGH, &C.

BY DAVID BREWSTER, LL. D.

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, AND SECRETARY TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF
EDINBURGH, &c. &c.

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

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BY CHARLES DAVIES,

PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN THE MILITARY ACADEMY,

AND

AUTHOR OF THE COMMON SCHOOL ARITHMETIC, ELEMENTS OF DESCRIPTIVE
GEOMETRY, ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY, DIFFERENTIAL AND INTEGRAL
CALCULUS, AND A TREATISE ON SHADOWS

AND PERSPECTIVE.

PUBLISHED BY

WILEY & LONG; COLLINS, KEESE & CO., NEW YORK,-DESILVER, THOMAS
& CO., PHILADELPHIA,-RUSSELL, SHATTUCK & CO., BoSTON,-H. F.
SUMNER & CO., HARTFORD,-CUSHING & SONS, BALTIMORE,

-S. BABCOCK & CO., CHARLESTON, S. C.-

TRUMAN & SMITH, CINCINNATI.

1838.

DAVIES' ARITHMETIC-Designed for the use of Aca demies and Schools. It is the purpose of this work to explain, in a brief and clear manner, the properties of numbers, and the best rules for their various applications.

DAVIES' BOURDON'S ALGEBRA-Being an abridg ment of the work of M. Bourdon, with the additions of practical examples.

DAVIES' LEGENDRE'S GEOMETRY AND TRIGONOMETRY-Being an abridgment of the work of 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, and an explanation of the method of surveying

the Public Lands.

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 Spherical Projections.

DAVIES' SHADOWS AND LINEAR PERSPECTIVE. DAVIES' DIFFERENTIAL AND INTEGRAL CALCULUS.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, by CHARLES DAVIES, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New-York.

Exch

W. I Clements lib.

7-23-36

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.

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