Πολλάκι δ' ἐξ ὀλίγης ὀδύνης μέγα γίγνεται ἄλγος, SOLON. Sæpe dolor tenuis morbos produxit acerbos, Tollere quos nullis sit medicaminibus: Sæpe diu sævo jactatum corporis æstu Contactu sanum reddidit una manus. GROTIUS. FRINTED BY JOHN STARK, EDINBURGH. Académie des sciences, Paris. BY J. C. COLQUHOUN, Esq. Ingenii commenta delet dies; naturæ judicia confirmat.-CICERO. Non fingendum, non excogitandum, sed inveniendum et observandum quid PREFACE. It is not without considerable hesitation and great diffidence that I venture to submit the following pages to public notice. The subject is, in a great measure, foreign to my usual avocations, and was originally taken up merely as a matter of curiosity, although it afterwards swelled, in my estimation, into no small importance. Conscious, however, as I necessarily must be, of my own great deficiency in the requisite knowledge of those sciences which are most calculated to elucidate the particular object of my present researches, I have long felt an anxious desire that some individual, better qualified by his · α |