402 Da KNOX on the Dentition of the Dugong, and on the 



If any proofs were awanting that natural science requires 

 protection, that it never has, nor ever can, make any progress 

 in the hands of others than strictly scientific men, it will be 

 found that the facts required to demonstrate this may be best 

 drawn from the history of the Cetacea. 



Since the period when the commercial nations of Europe 

 first navigated the icy seas of Greenland, to obtain by the cap- 

 ture of the whale, and others of the tribe Cetacea, whalebone 

 and oil, for the purposes of traffic, hundreds of vessels, admirably 

 equipped, commanded by persons not wholly illiterate, and (I 

 regret to make the avowal) provided with surgeons, whose edu- 

 cation ought, assuredly, always more or less, to lead to a fond- 

 ness for natural historical pursuits, have annually visited these 

 frozen coasts ; have assisted in the capture of thousands of 

 whales ; have been now, for some centuries past, under circum- 

 stances the most favourable for the observation of the peculiar 

 history of these most interesting animals, without the addition 

 of a single well ascertained fact, so far as I can learn, to those 

 published nearly a hundred years ago by a gentleman in no way 

 commercial, the Honourable PAUL DUDLEY, who published, in 

 the Philosophical Transactions for 1730, some Observations on 

 the Natural History of several of the larger Cetacea. 



There is something, then, in the spirit of trade and com- 

 merce hostile to real science, and to the progress of scientific 

 pursuits ; nor do I think this hostility limited to the sciences 

 termed Natural merely, but to every kind of knowledge with 

 which I am acquainted. These remarks I do not make with a 

 view to hurt the feelings of any one, but simply to explain the 

 difficulties which anatomists and naturalists have experienced in 



naturalist, Dr FLEMING ; an erroneous conception of which, without doubt, must 

 have arisen in his mind from his little acquaintance with anatomical science. 



