Note lxxxvii:1 — TO THE READER.

Consult Hist. Roy. Soc. and their Registers.

The Laws of Motion, and the Geometrical streightning of Curve Lines were first found out by Sir Christopher Wren and Mr. Thomas Neile.

The equated isocrone Motion of the weight of a Circular Pendulum in a Paraboloid, for the regulating of Clocks; and the improving Pocket-Watches by Springs applied to the Ballance, were first invented and demonstrated to this Society by Dr. Hooke; together with all those New and useful Instruments, Contrivances and Experiments, Mathematical and Physical, publish’d in his Posthumous Works by the most accomplish’d Mr. Waller, Secretary to the R. Society. And since those the incomparably learned Sir Isaac Newton, now President of the Royal Society; Mr. Haly, the Worthy Professor of Geometry in the University of Oxford; Dr. Grew, and several more, whose Works and useful Inventions sufficiently celebrate their Merits: I did mention the Barometer, to which might be added the prodigious effects of the Speculum Ustorium, surpassing what the French pretend to, as confidently, or rather audaciously, they do, and to other admirable Inventions, injuriously arrogated by Strangers, tho’ due of right to Englishmen, and Members of this Society; but ’tis not the business of this Preface to enumerate all, tho’ ’twas necessary to touch on some Instances.