A

MILLION OF FACTS,

OF

CORRECT DATA,

AND

Elementary Constants,

IN THE

ENTIRE CIRCLE OF THE SCIENCES,

AND ON ALL SUBJECTS OF

SPECULATION AND PRACTICE;

ADAPTED TO

THE CLOSET AND THE ACTIVE WORLD.

BY SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS.

The man who writes, speaks, or meditates, without being well-stocked with Facts, as land-marks to
his understanding, is like a mariner who sails along a treacherous coast without a pilot, or one who
adventures in the wide ocean, without either a rudder or compass.-Lord Bacon.

Facts are to the mind the same thing as food to the body. On the due digestion of facts, depend
the strength and wisdom of the one, just as vigour and health depend on the other. The wisest in
council, the ablest in debate, and the most agreeable companion in the commerce of human life, is
that man who has assimilated to his understanding the greatest number of Facts.-Burke.

Within the last two hundred years, or since Galileo and Bacon taught us this great lesson, we have
been employed in recording Facts in ten thousand several Volumes. But, thus scattered, they lose
so much of their value and importance, that we may hope that, in another age, some aspirant after
Literary Glory will perform the Herculean labour of condensing the whole into a volume.-Playfair.

In printing a THIRD edition of this volume within TWO YEARS, the Author has reiterated those exertions, which, he flatters himself, have rendered his work so unequivocally acceptable. The Second Edition was an admitted great improvement on the First, and the present Edition may be considered as a refounding of the whole, with innumerable improvements, and very important interpolations and additions.

The great success of the Work, and the burst of applause which followed its publication, have encouraged him to bestow unremitting labour in conferring every practical perfection on this Edition. New Chapters have been added, others have been recast, and every column, almost every paragraph, has undergone revision. A faultless work, embracing so extensive a range of subjects, cannot however be expected. No labour will reconcile many points, and no care can exclude mistakes in typography in a work which has no likeness in quantity, compression, and variety.

Though large editions have been sold, the Public are so wary in regard to new candidates, that there still remains. a vast circulation to be supplied. In foreign nations, where such a work can neither be translated nor imitated; and in the Colonies, it is prized in the most flattering manner, and often sold at double the London Price.

In a word, no Book of its magnitude ever acquired an equal ascendancy in the same time, and the utmost ambition of the Author has been gratified by universal approbation.

If the first Edition might be honestly called a MILLION of Facts, this may now, with strict propriety, be called a MILLION and a HALF; for the additions have been