ADVERTISEMENT.

FACTS are the data of all just reasoning, and the primary elements of all real knowledge. The wisest man is he who possesses the greatest store of Facts within the command of his understanding. A book, therefore, which assembles Facts from all their scattered sources, may be considered as a useful and important auxiliary of Wisdom. It lays claim to be the companion of ALL who earnestly seek truth at the fountain-head; of ALL who think for themselves, or who desire to be thought to do so; and of ALL who desire to correct errours in themselves or in others.

The pretensions of the present Editor are a prolonged and uninterrupted intercourse with men and books. He has for forty-two years been occupied as literary conductor of various publick journals of reputation; he has superintended the printing of some hundred books, in every branch of human pursuits; and he has been intimately mingled with men celebrated for their attainments in each of them.

This work will however be variously estimated by different persons in sympathy with their favourite pursuits. Every one will expect more on his own subject than the execution could permit. Portable size, moderate price, and generalizations were its essential elements. If larger, more costly, or more detailed on particular subjects, it would not have been, as designed, a book of UNIVERSAL

UTILITY.

The class of facts have generally been preferred which bear the modern name of statistical, since numbers are the least remembered, and therefore, in regard to them, an auxiliary is the most required. But a succession of such details would have been intolerably dull, and the Editor has, therefore, intermingled them with facts more piquant to the imagination, so as to produce a diversity of information that may often be perused with pleasure in uninterrupted succession.

For the same reason, logical analysis and synthesis have been avoided, and order, as such, disregarded, except in the juxtaposition of similar topicks, and the arrangement into chapters. A readable Book of Facts was the object, and it is to be hoped that the execution has been such as is best suited to its attainment

In its nature the book is not one of opinion or doctrine. Some subjects, however, have extorted inferences, the withholding of which would have been to compromise truth, and exhibit a coldness of feeling little creditable to the Editor.

On the Title of the work it may be remarked, that, though it limits the contents to a MILLION of facts, yet, in truth, the volume, directly or indirectly, contains FAR MORE. It is not pretended, however, that it contains all facts, since facts are infinite in number, but only such as best illustrate the subjects, and as are the most likely to become objects of inquiry and reference. Million, in this sense, is like the Hebrew word forty, meaning a number undetermined, and either a million, or forty, more or less. No generick word like collection, assemblage, multitude, &c. so aptly expressed the comprehensive extent of the work as the word million; for, besides its literal truth, it implies that the book may be used in a million of cases of inquiry, and further, that it has claims to be received, in due time, into a MILLION OF FAMILIES.