Fair copy of "Preliminary Propositions"

This is a fair copy of "Preliminary Propositions": a continuation of Cavendish's paper "An attempt to explain Some of the Principle Phenomena of Electricity by Means of an Elastic Fluid" published in "Philosophical Transactions" 31 December 1771 Vol. 61 pp584-677. It contains propositions 29 to 33. It is paginated P1-P48.

It is enclosed in a cover with a note written "Cavendish: Mathematical Theory of Electricity". On a second internal cover note, there is a longer note in William Snow Harris' handwriting: "Draft of Further Propositions relative to the Mathematical theory of Electricity by Mr Cavendish this contains the Preliminary Proposition and appears to be the 2nd Part not printed in the Paper in Phil. Trans. vol 61 for 1771- the Propositions in Lemmas referenced to are effectively those in the [illegible] Paper New [illegible] are Proposition wanting to link the Two conflicts - last Prop. in Printed Paper is Prop. 27. The first contained is Prop. 29 - so that 28 is wanting - this may perhaps be an error in number." There is a note written in pencil at the top of the internal cover note "Preliminary Propositions" and a longer note in red pen "No 4 By a careful examination I find that this is very probably the fair draft of the continuation of the Printed Paper in 61. vol of Phil. Trans. - there is an [illegible] draft Prop. wanting as to numbers. vis. the last in printed paper is No 27. The first here is No. 29: the the Lemmas are in papers sequence. Last Lemma in printed paper is No 11 [illegible] No 12". "No 6" is crossed out and replaced with "No 4". Within the pages, there are notes made in pencil by William Snow Harris: at p15, "this appears to be a mistake on the sequence it should be 33" and on a unnumbered sheet before p17, "Belongs to Preliminary Prop Lemma 16".