University of Virginia Library


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CABINET CYCLOPæDIA,
conducted by the
REV. DIONYSIUS LARDNER, LL. D. F. R. S. L. & E. M. R. I. A. F. L. S. F. Z. S. Hon. F. C. P. S. M. Ast. S. &c. &c.
assisted by
EMINENT LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

Now Publishing by Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, and for sale by all Booksellers

This work will form a popular compendium of whatever is useful, instructive,
and interesting, in the circle of human knowledge. A novel plan of publication
and arrangement has been adopted, which presents peculiar advantages. Without
fully detailing the method, a few of these advantages may be mentioned.

Each volume will contain one or more subjects uninterrupted and unbroken,
and will be accompanied by the corresponding plates or other appropriate illustrations.
Facility of reference will be obtained without fettering the work by
a continued alphabetical arrangement. A subscriber may omit particular volumes
or sets of volumes, without disintegrating his series. Thus each purchaser
may form from the “Cabinet” a Cyclopædia, more or less comprehensive, as
may suit his means, taste, or profession. If a subscriber desire to discontinue
the work at any stage of its publication, the volumes which he may have received
will not lose their value by separation from the rest of the work, since
they will always either be complete in themselves, or may be made so at a trifling
expense.

The purchasers will never find their property in this work destroyed by the
publication of a second edition. The arrangement is such that particular volumes
may be re-edited or re-written without disturbing the others. The “Cabinet
Cyclopædia
” will thus be in a state of continual renovation, keeping pace
with the never-ceasing improvements in knowledge, drawing within its circle
from year to year whatever is new, and casting off whatever is obsolete, so as to
form a constantly modernized Cyclopædia. Such are a few of the advantages
which the proprietors have to offer to the public, and which they pledge themselves
to realize.

Treatises on subjects which are technical and professional will be adapted,
not so much to those who desire to attain a practical proficiency, as to those
who seek that portion of information respecting such matters which is generally
expected from well-educated persons. An interest will be imparted to what is
abstract by copious illustrations, and the sciences will be readered attractive, by
treating them with reference to the most familiar objects and occurrences.

The unwieldly bulk of Encyclopædias, not less than the abstruse discussions
which they contain, has hitherto consigned them to the library, as works of only
occasional reference. The present work, from its portable form and popular style, will claim a place in the drawing-room and the boudoir. Forming in itself a
Complete Library, affording an extensive and infinitely varied store of instruction
and amusement, presenting just so much on every subject as those not professionally
engaged in it require, convenient in size, attractive in form, elegant
in illustrations, and most moderate in expense, the “Cabinet Cyclopædia” will,
it is hoped, be found an object of paramount interest in every family.

To the heads of schools and all places of public education the proprietors trust
that this work will particularly recommend itself.

It seems scarcely necessary to add, that nothing will be admitted into the
pages of the “Cabinet Cyclopædia” which can have the most remote tendency
to offend public or private morals. To enforce the cultivation of religion and
the practice of virtue should be a principal object with all who undertake to
inform the public mind; but with the views just explained, the conductor of this
work feels these considerations more especially pressed upon his attention.
Parents and guardians may, therefore, rest assured that they will never find it
necessary to place a volume of the “Cabinet” beyond the reach of their children
or pupils.


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It is not easy to devise a cure for such a state of things (the declining
taste for science;) but the most obvious remedy is to provide
the educated classes with a series of works on popular and practical
science, freed from mathematical symbols and technical terms,
written in simple and perspicuous language, and illustrated by facts
and experiments, which are level to the capacity of ordinary minds
.”

Quarterly Review.

PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE ON THE OBJECTS, ADVANTAGES,
AND PLEASURES OF THE STUDY OF NATURAL
PHILOSOPHY. By J. T. W. Herschel, A. M. late Fellow
of St. John's College, Cambridge
.

“Without disparaging any other of the many interesting and instructive volumes
issued in the form of cabinet and family libraries, it is, perhaps, not too
much to place at the head of the list, for extent and variety of condensed information,
Mr. Herchel's discourse of Natural Philosophy in Dr. Lardner's Cyclopædia.”


Christian Observer.

“The finest work of philosophical genius which this age has seen.”

Mackintosh's
England
.

“By far the most delightful book to which the existing competition between
literary rivals of great talent and enterprise has given rise.”

Monthly Review.

“Mr. Herschel's delightful volume. * * * We find scattered through the
work instances of vivid and happy illustration, where the fancy is usefully called
into action, so as sometimes to remind us of the splendid pictures which crowd
upon us in the style of Bacon.”

Quarterly Review.

“It is the most exciting volume of the kind we ever met with.”

Monthly
Magazine
.

“One of the most instructive and delightful books we have ever perused.”


U. S. Journal.

A TREATISE ON MECHANICS. By Capt. Kater, and the
Rev. Dionysius Lardner. With numerous engravings
.

“A work which contains an uncommon amount of useful information, exhibited
in a plain and very intelligible form.”

Olmsted's Nat. Philosophy.

“This volume has been lately published in England, as a part of Dr. Lardner's
Cabinet Cyclopædia, and has received the unsolicited approbation of the most
eminent men of science, and the most discriminating journals and reviews, in
the British metropolis.—It is written in a popular and intelligible style, entirely
free from mathematical symbols, and disencumbered as far as possible of teclinical
phrases.”

Boston Traveller.

“Admirable in development and clear in principles, and especially felicitous in
illustration from familiar subjects.”

Monthly Mag.

OUTLINES OF HISTORY, from the earliest period to the
present time
.

A TREATISE ON HYDROSTATICS AND PNEUMATICS.
By the Rev. D. Lardner. With numerous engravings
.

“It fully sustairs the favorable opinion we have already expressed as to this
valuable compendium of modern science.”

Lit. Gazette.

“Dr. Lardner has made a good use of his acquaimance with the familiar facts
which illustrate the principles of science.”

Monthly Magazine.

“It is written with a full knowledge of the subject, and in a popular style,
abounding in practical illustrations of the abstruse operations of these important
sciences.”

U. S. Journal.


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THE PEOPLE'S LIBRARY.

“The editors and publishers should receive the thanks of the present
generation, and the gratitude of posterity, for being the first to prepare in
this language what deserves to be entitled not the ENCYCLOPæDIA
AMERICANA, but the people's library.”

N. Y. Courier and Enquirer.

Just Published, by Carey, Lea, and Blanchard,

And sold in Philadelphia by E. L. Carey & A. Hart; in New-York by
G. & C. & H. Carvill; in Boston by Carter & Hendee; in Baltimore by E.
J. Coale, & W. & J. Neal;
in Washington by Thompson & Homans; in
Richmond by J. H. Nash; in Savannah by W. T. Williams; in Charleston
by W. H. Berrett; in New-Orleans by W. M'Kean; in Mobile by Odiorne
& Smith;
and by the principal booksellers throughout the Union.