AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON ALGEBRA: TO WHICH ARE ADDED EXPONENTIAL EQUATIONS AND LOGARITHMS. BY BENJAMIN PEIRCE, A. M., UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY. BOSTON: JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. M DCCC XXXVII. HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF GEORGE ARTHUR PLIMPTON Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1837, BY JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Cambridge Press: PREFACE. THE excellent treatises on Algebra, which have been prepared by Professor Smyth and Professor Davies, containing as they do the best improvements of Bourdon and other French writers, would seem to leave nothing to be desired in this department of mathematics. The form, however, adopted in English works of instruction, of dividing the subject as much as possible into separate propositions, is probably the best adapted to the character of the English pupil. This form has, therefore, been adopted in the present treatise, while the investigation of each proposition has been conducted according to the French system of analysis. Great care has been taken in the choice of examples, and free use has been made of Meier Hirsch's selection of problems. The principal aim has, indeed, been to communicate that mechanical dexterity in the use of symbols, which is so important to the expert algebraist, and without which great progress in the higher branches of the science is almost impossible. As this work is one of a Course of Mathematics, all subjects have been excluded from it, which do not strictly come within its limits. This will account for the omission of the indeterminate analysis, |