TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
The original text used the long-form s; this has been replaced by the normal s in the etext.
The original text printed ‘ct’ as a ligature, and is displayed simply as ‘ct’ character pair in the etext.
Fractions are displayed as a. b. , for example 3. 4. , similar to the format of the original text.
Whole numbers are always terminated with a period, as in the original text, for example ‘about 1800. is the number of ... ’.
The pound currency sign in the text is l, which looks very similar to the number 1, and the five occurrences have been italicized in the etext. For example one hundred pounds is shown as 100l., instead of 100l.
All changes listed in the [Errata] at the back of the book have been applied to the etext. These changes are marked in the etext with dashed green underlining.
Some other minor changes to the text are noted at [the end of the book].