EPISTLE.

original signature: ã iij

...experiments, according to the Laws of Mechanics, whose principles you have made wonderfully productive through the art of decomposing the most complicated movements. How few are the mechanisms The original French uses "ressorts" (springs), reflecting the common 18th-century philosophical view of the human body as a complex biological machine. of the human body—that masterpiece of Creation—which are not known to you, and whose ailments can now be better repaired than ever before, through the means provided by your discoveries in Botany & Chemistry. You have enriched Algebra & Geometry with an infinite number of new Methods that leave nothing more to be desired for the perfection of the Arts In this context, "Arts" refers to practical sciences and technical disciplines like engineering and surveying. which may be subjected to them. One cannot deny you the credit for having secured the safety of Navigation, by determining Longitudes, with the help of the new celestial bodies that you have discovered in the Heavens. Finally, the accuracy of your Astronomical Observations seems to have granted you a right over the partitioning of the Earth; for, by rectifying Geography, you have enclosed within their true limits the portion belonging to each Nation.

It is these advancements, certain of immortality, which have made your Name, GENTLEMEN, famous even in the most remote Lands; and Posterity, in admiring them,