NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1867.
THE LAST NUMBER OF VOLUME XVII.
We give in this number a full index of the volume of which this is the last issue. No doubt this will be more satisfactory to our readers--those at least who preserve their numbers for binding, and probably most do--than publishing the index in a separate sheet. The list of claims in this number will be found to be unusually full, a gratifying evidence that dullness of business does not cripple the resources nor abate the industry of our inventors. With a parting word of good will to our present subscribers and a welcome to those who begin with our new volume, we wish for all a HAPPY NEW YEAR.
COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW VOLUME.
With the next number the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN enters upon its twenty-third year. Probably no publication extent will furnish a more complete and exhaustive exhibit of the progress of science and the arts in this country for the past twenty-two years than a complete file of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. It is a curious and interesting pastime to compare the condition of the mechanic arts as presented in some of our first volumes with that shown in our more recent ones. During all this time, nearly a quarter of a century, our journal has endeavored to represent the actual condition of our scientific and mechanical progress and to record the discoveries and improvements in these departments wherever made. The result is a compendium of valuable information unattainable through any other means.
But the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN has aimed not only to gratify a laudable curiosity by collecting and presenting such information, but to give practical knowledge which could be applied to valuable uses.