294 TABLES OF CONSTANTS OF NATURE AND ART. 



determination of established facts, and to the discovery and measure- 

 ment of new ones. 



The following list ot those facts relating to mammalia, which can 

 be expressed by numbers, was first printed in 1826. It was intended 

 as an example of one chapter in a great collection of facts which the 

 author suggested under the title of the " Constants of nature and 

 ART." About 200 copies were circulated at that period. The num- 

 ber of persons, however, then engaged in cultivating science was small, 

 and the author's own pursuits prevented him from attempting to fill 

 up any part of the details of the subject. The want of some 

 central body to which individual results might be confided for the 

 purpose of arrangement also impeded the publication of such results 

 as may have been collected. 



The present time ofiers a far more favorable combination of circum- 

 stances. Science itself is cultivated by a much larger number of per- 

 sons. Stationary scientific societies have become more special in their 

 particular objects. Other societies assembling periodically in different 

 cities have brought into personal acquaintance men of all countries 

 following kindred pursuits. The newest feature of the times, "con- 

 gresses for special objects," bring together men who have deeply 

 studied those objects, who have felt the want of union as an impedi- 

 ment to their advancement, and who assemble together to agree upon 

 principles and methods of observation, which^ whilst they shorten the 

 labor of individual research, contribute towards rendering most pro- 

 ductive the united efforts of the collective body of inquirers. 



The accompanying skeleton of facts susceptible of measure, apper- 

 taining to mammalia alone, might occupy usefully a large number of 

 different inquirers. If those distinguished men who are at the head 

 of the great schools of comparative anatomy would suggest to their 

 pupils the measurement and weight of the various skeletons of animals 

 occasionally coming under their control, much advantage would be 

 derived from the exercises afforded to the students, whilst, by causing 

 these successive measurements of the same individual to be made and 

 recorded by several pupils, any casual error would be corrected. 



The directors of zoological gardens and other menageries might 

 readily supply a daily account of the food consumed by the animals, 

 whilst every intelligent visitor might himself count and register the 

 inspirations of the animals. Even in the farm-house and in the 

 country village several of these inquiries might be successfully pur- 

 sued. The proportion of the sexes amongst our poultry and our 

 domesticated animals,, the rates of their pulse and their inspirations, 

 are at present unrecorded in works of natural history. 



In order to promote and render useful these contributions of indi- 

 viduals, it is essentially necessary tliat some centre of action should 

 be arranged, to which all communications should be addressed, and 

 by which they should be recorded from time to time in the periodical 

 publications of the day. AVhen a sufficient number had thus accu- 

 mulated, a special memoir on the subject might be contributed to some 

 philosophical society, in which the deductions arising from these facts 

 might be pointed out, and the most interesting direction of further 

 researches indicated. 



