ous Use; by this dangerous Speed, we should draw them off from many of the best Foundations of Knowledge. Many of their noblest Discoveries, and such as will hereafter prove most serviceable, cannot instantly be made to turn to Profit. Many of their weightiest and most precious Observations, are not always fit to be exposed to open View: For it is with the greatest Philosophers, as with the richest Merchants, whose Wares of greatest Bulk and Price, lye commonly out of Sight, in their Warehouses, and not in their Shops.
This being premis'd, I will however venture to lay down a brief Draught of their most remarkable Particulars, which may be reduced to these following Heads: The Queries and Directions they have given abroad; the Proposals and Recommendations they have made; the Relations they have received; the Experiments they have tried; the Observations they have taken; the Instruments they have invented; the Theories that have been proposed; the Discourses they have written, or published; the Repository and Library; and the Histories of Nature, and Arts, and Works they have collected.
Their Manner of gathering, and dispersing Queries, is this. First, they require some of their particular Fellows, to examine all Treatises and Descriptions of the Natural and Artificial Productions of those Countries, in which they would be informed. At the same Time, they employ others to discourse with the Seamen, Travellers, Tradesmen, and Merchants, who are likely to give them the best Light. Out of this united Intelligence from Men and Books, they compose a Body of Questions, concerning all
