NOTE BY THE EDITOR.
“Je me suis proposé de grands desseins dans ce petit ouvrage,” as Bernardin de Saint-Pierre says in the preface to his pathetic story of Paul et Virginie. I have sought to present to the great English-speaking world the work of a genius hitherto only known to a few men of science, and not well known, even among the people of France, for whose credit he has done so much. In placing before the readers of this translation his book—small of size but great in matter as it is—I feel that I have accomplished an easy task, but one of real importance. I have been asked, as Corresponding Member for the United States of the Société des Ingénieurs Civils de France, to communicate to my colleagues scientific and professional memoirs and whatever may be of interest to them—“en un mot, que nous resserrions les liens qui font des ingénieurs en géneral une seule famille.” That were a pleasant task; but a grander and a more agreeable one still is that of bringing “nearer in heart and thought” the members of that still larger community, the men of science of the world, and of weaving still
