SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY.

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ARCANA OF SCIENCE FOR 1831.

It has been our invariable practice to notice, _by extract only_, such
works as we are connected with, or to which we have contributed; and in
the present case we shall do little more.

Now, the reader need not be here told that the plan of an Annual
Register of Inventions and Improvements originated in _The Mirror_ about
four years since. Our intention there was to quote an occasional page or
two of novelties of popular interest in science and art, and leave more
abstruse matters to the journals in which they originally appeared. This
plan led us through most of the scientific records of the year, in which
we began to perceive that the reduction of all subjects of importance
was not compatible within a few pages, and sooner than allow many papers
of value to every member of society to be locked under the uninviting
denomination of _philosophy_, we undertook the abridgement and
arrangement of such papers, upon the plan of an "Annual Register,"
intending our volume specially to represent the progress of discovery
just as the general "Register" is a contribution to history. The cost
of the journals for this purpose proved to be upwards of Twelve Guineas,
but this outlay only made us more pleased with the design. A single
instance will suffice. The _Philosophical Magazine_, a work of high
character, numbers among its purchasers but few general readers: it
contains many mathematical, theoretical, and controversial papers, all
of which may advance their object, but are not in a form sufficiently