65 *>^* 



PART in. 



COLLECTANEA. 



The facts y descriptions^ or sjjeculations intended to occupy this division of 

 our work, are such as have more relation to natural history as a science, 

 than to its progress in any particular place or country ; in other words, we 

 devote this division to short communications, notices, extracts, or abridg- 

 ments, of permanent interest, as distinguished from the Miscellaneous Intel- 

 ligence composing Part IV., which is intended chiefly for what may be 

 called news, or notices of local and temporary interest. This explanation 

 of our arrangement will the better enable our friends and contributors to 

 understand what will be acceptable, and will prove to every reader who is 

 favourable to our undertaking, how easy it will be for him to render us 

 assistance. 



Art. 1. The General Subject, 



The Circular Si/stem. — Now, there is incontestible evidence to prove 

 that the same system which is found to govern the heavenly bodies — a 

 system plainly circular — is typically represented on earth, and is that upon 

 which the whole of organised matter has originally been planned. If either 

 the animal or the vegetable kingdom be attentively considered, they will 

 each present a certain number of primary divisions, following each other 

 in a series of affinity. They will also have this remarkable peculiarity, 

 that the last will so intimately resemble the first, that the series returns 

 again to the point from which the investigation commenced ; and thus by 

 the union of the first division with the last, the whole can only be repre- 

 sented under the form of a circle. Again, if any one of these primary 

 divisions be examined singly, the same disposition will be found ; each of 

 these secondary groups will form their own circles of affinity. These again 

 are found to contain smaller circles, till at last the enquiry becomes 

 limited to the individual species. (Swainson, in the Winter's Wreath for 

 1828, p. 295.) 



Spontaneous Organisation of Matter. — M. Bory de St. Vincent has oc- 

 cupied himself for some time past with a variety of microscopic observa- 

 tions, having for their object to prove the natural tendency of matter to 

 become organised. Observing the appearances successively presented in 

 water exposed to light, he thought he saw, for the first time, matter assume 

 the aspect of a simple mucosity, without colour or form. If the water con- 

 tains any animal substance, it produces a pellicle of this mucosity at its sur- 

 face, then becomes turbid, and discloses an infinity of living atoms, if we 

 may so call those monads, which, after being magnified a thousand times, 

 are not so large as the point of a needle, and which yet move in all directions 

 with prodigious velocity. This is what M. Bory names matter in the liv- 

 ing state. When the water is exposed to the air and light, there quickly 

 forms what is named the green matter of Priestley, which many observers 

 have supposed to be the first state of certain confervae, or plants of a like 

 nature. M. Bory thinks that it is a combination of a more general form, 

 and only susceptible of entering into the composition of these plants, as 

 well as of the animalcules which issue from it, and which produces them. 



Vol. L — No. I. f 



