Excerpt from The Theory of Elliptic Integrals: And the Properties of Surfaces of the Second Order The idea of substituting, as a means of investigation, an ideal ellipsoid, having certain relations with the actually revolv ing body, claims the illustrious Legendre as its author. Al though he conducts his own investigations on principles altogether different, be yet seems well aware of the use which might be made of this happy conception. In his Traz'te dc. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.