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iv

herein apparent to his conception, which shall in due time be taken into consideration, rectified, and the favour gratefully acknowledged. Had this been the production of what is denominated a scholar, or man of education, much room might have been found for exhibiting flowers of rhetoric and learned philosophical explanations. So much, indeed, a display of these talents might have been exercised, as to render the book of more extensive magnitude, but at the same time, obscure and unintelligible to the very class for whose instruction and information it is principally intended. Wrote by a tradesman, for the particular behoof of tradesmen, all technical terms are therefore carefully avoided; or, where such do necessarily occur, an illustration generally succeeds. That this book may prove useful,