most of these valuable remains.
With this view he published a translation of Vieta's restoration of
_Apollonius on Tangencies_, in 1764, and to this, in the second edition of
1771, was added the _Treatise on Spherical Tangencies_, by Fermat, which
has since been reprinted in the _Appendix to the Ladies' Diary_ for 1840.
In 1767 appeared Emerson's _Treatise on Conic Sections_; a work which,
notwithstanding its manifest defects, contributed not a little to aid the
student in his approaches to the higher geometry, but whose publication
would probably have been rendered unnecessary, had Dr. Simson so far
loosened himself from the trammels of the age, as to have written his own
admirable treatise in the English language. The frequency, however, with
which Mr. Emerson's treatise has been quoted, almost up to the present
date, would appear to justify the propriety of including _it_ amongst the
means by which the study of geometry was promoted during the last
generation. The success which attended Mr. Lawson's first experiment
induced him to proceed in his career of usefulness by the publication, in
1772, of the _Treatise on Determinate Section_; to which was appended an
amended restoration of the same work by Mr. William Wales, the well-known
geometer, who attended Captain Cook as astronomer, in one of his earlier
voyages. In 1773 appeared the _Synopsis of Data for the Construction of
Triangles_, which was followed in 1774 by his valuable _Dissertations on
the Geometrical Analysis of the Ancients_; and although the author used an
unjustifiable freedom with the writings of others, Dr. Stewart's more
especially, it is nevertheless a work which probably did more to advance
the study of the ancient geometry than any other separate treatise which
could be named. As these publications became distributed amongst
mathematicians, the _Magazines_, the _Diaries_, and various other
periodicals, began to show the results of the activity which had thus been
created; geometrical questions became much more abundant, and a numerous
list of contributions appeared which afford ample proof that their able
authors had entered deeply into the spirit of the ancient geometry. During
the year 1777 Mr. Lawson issued the first portion of Dr. Simson's
restoration of _Euclid's Porisms_, translated from the _Opera Reliqua_ of
that distinguished geometer; and though the work was not continued,
sufficient had already been done to furnish the generality of stud