USEFUL TO THE MERCHANT-. 137 
in these times, new countries are continually opening 
2s marts of traffic, and new channels of commerce 
are making their way even into the heart of Africa, 
the man who possesses this sort of information, and 
turns it to advantage, not unfrequently realises a 
fortune; while he, who, like the Sheffield cutler, 
sent a large consignment of patent skates to Buenos 
Ayres*, thinking they would, in a new country, 
sell for an enormous sum, may very likely be 
ruined. Every one knows the importance of our 
fisheries, particularly those for the whale and the 
seal. Had laws been made by our legislators for 
the preservation of the former, on the same principle 
as they so sedulously preserve their own game, we 
should not hear of the Greenland fisheries being 
almost ruined ;—no one, indeed, could have drawn 
up a parliamentary bill for this purpose, without a 
competent knowledge of the natural history of the 
animal whose race was to be preserved;—while in 
regard to the seal fisheries, they might be extended, 
beyond all doubt, in parts of the Southern hemisphere 
hitherto entirely neglected. The fur trade, again, 
opens a field for the practical use of natural history : 
for, independent of the necessity of accurately dis- 
criminating the different species whose skins form an 
article of commerce, how much might this trade be 
extended and benefited by a merchant well acquainted 
with the geographic range of these animals, the 
peculiar times when their furs are in the finest con- 
dition, and what countries are destitute of such 

* A fact which occurred in 1806. 
