PREFACE.
It has been for some time a subject of complaint that there existed no easy Elementary work on Optics, suited to the present state of Mathematical knowledge. The works of Newton, of Harris, of Smith, contain, it is true, a vast deal of important information, but that information is conveyed in such a shape as hardly to be tangible to modern readers. Perhaps it may be permitted to say that objections of the same kind have been made to Dr. Wood’s elegant little Treatise, which being composed after the model of those mentioned, does not harmonize, if I may be allowed the expression, with the other mathematical works which are at present the object of study in our University.
This consideration induced Mr. Whewell to draw up in the Spring of 1819 a Syllabus of those parts of the Science of Optics that are usually inquired into, and that Syllabus, with the instructions conveyed in his Lectures, which I had then the pleasure of attending, formed the basis of the little Treatise which, at the instigation of himself and others of my friends, I now venture to offer to the public.
