REDUCTION OF POSTA(iH. — VOYAGE OF THE BLOSSOM. 145 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



MARCH, 1840. 



The penny-postage rate, thanks to Mr. Rowland Hill, has now become 

 the order of the day. Of its benefits, we can speak feelingly, for the long 

 array of contributions whose titles grace each volume of this journal, 

 has involved no insignificant patronage of Her Majesty's establishment 

 in St. Martin's le Grand. Not that we have been treated otherwise than 

 most liberally by our correspondents in the matter of postage, for the 

 cases have been rare indeed that a letter has come to hand unfranked 

 by the sender. It has been in the outward bound despatches where we 

 have felt so crippled by the impost. Now if we wish to communicate 

 with our contributors, in the most distant part of the kingdom, we can 

 do it as often as we please, without a calculation as to what it may cost 

 us to attain our object. We have no longer to send our ounce despatches 

 to some M.P., with a respectful hint that by franking them to their res- 

 pective destinations, he will be serving, us, and serving science at the 

 same time. Natural History has indeed received a boon, and we should 

 be ungrateful, did we not offer some acknowledgment to the talent and 

 boldness, displayed in the first bringing forward a measure, which the 

 voice of the country has since so triumphantly carried into efi'ect. 



The long looked-for and long despaired-of ' Zoology of Beechey's voy- 

 age' is at last before us. Its merits as a scientific work will be duly no- 

 ticed in another place ; on this occasion we shall merely say a word touch- 

 ing a passage, which greatly helps to fill out the preface. Sir William 

 Beechey, after doing justice to the labours of several distinguished men 

 of science, by acknowledging the obligation he is under to them for their 

 co-operation in getting up the descriptive portion of the volume, thus 

 proceeds. — 



" I wish I could with sincerity have included with the above-mention- 

 " ed names that of Mr. J. E. Gray, who undertook to describe the shells, 

 " but the publication has suffered so much by delay in consequence of his 

 " having been connected with it, that it is a matter of the greatest regret 

 " to me that I ever acceded to his offer to engage in it. This delay has 

 " from various causes, been extended over a period of eight years, and I 

 " cannot with justice or propriety conceal from the government, the col- 

 *' lectors, and especially from the contributors to the work, whose MSS. 

 " have been so long printed, that it has been occasioned entirely bv Mr. 

 Vol. IV.— No. 39. n. s. r 



