•4 APPENDIX. 



count, another order of things predominates. It is here 

 that we find the savant who has reached the highest pin- 

 nacle of fame, and the humblest tyro destined perhaps 

 never even to cross the threshold of her temple, alike 

 registering the share of information which each respec- 

 tively has gleaned from the treasury of nature. If it be want- 

 ed that the result of individual research, secured to its 

 discoverer, shall rapidly circulate, and be sent forth simul- 

 taneously to every quarter in which homage is tendered at 

 the shrine of science, here it is that a channel is found 

 by which that object is made sure. It is the apprecia- 

 tion of this boon, on the part of those who are at work 

 in the field of physical research, and the consciousness 

 they possess, that these records of philosophical discovery 

 are far from being sources of wealth to their responsible 

 originators, which forms here a tie between Editor and 

 Contributor, that elsewhere is unknown. Both are as- 

 sisting, though in different ways, to further the same ex- 

 alted object, and the innate satisfaction arising from this 

 source, repays the appropriation of time and exertion which, 

 in one sense, might often be far more profitably employed. 

 It is here again that an Editor, in virtue of his position, ne- 

 cessarily becomes a party to the results which others have ar- 

 rived at, before those results are communicated to the world 

 at large; and whether their nature be one embracing simply 

 matters of fact, or those of philosophical induction, the power 

 of hastening or retarding the acquirement of a title to them 

 by their rightful owners, within certain limits, is vested in 

 himself. A knowledge of this, and of the opportunities 

 which an Editor must sometimes have at his command, 

 were he disposed unduly to exercise the power thus en- 

 trusted to him, brings with it the necessity for a firm be- 

 lief, on the part of the contributors, that their confidence 

 will not be abused. An individual, mixing in that sphere of 

 society wherein the less exact sciences are professedly made 

 the leading object of cultivation, may be willing, or perhaps 

 even ambitious of singly incurring the risk and labor attend- 

 ant upon the direction of a scientific periodical ; but he will 

 seek in vain to draw around him that class of supporters, 

 whose contributions alone can make a journal stand high 

 in public estimation, unless he enjoy a reputation dis- 

 tinct from that which forms the mere attribute of philoso- 

 phical attainment. 



T took the Editorship of the Magazine of Natural History at 

 a period in the career of life which, if not the most mature, 

 is perhaps the most sanguine — the transition from youth to 



