406 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
them from the continental market, while nobody 
will buy them at home. The only plan, therefore, 
by which this virtual prohibition could be overcome, 
would be by diminishing the cost of production in 
some such manner as we have already suggested, or 
by allowing a small bounty on their exportation. 
The fact of the matter, however, is this; that for 
books of this description there is, in all countries, 
more or less, such a very limited demand, that 
profit is entirely out of the question, and the 
only effectual way of promoting their sale, and of 
reducing their present cost, would be by a general 
agreement, among all civilised governments, to ad- 
mit them free of all import duties. We believe 
some such liberal measure has been adopted in 
France, and we trust that the American, if not our 
own government, will not be tardy in performing 
this small act of generosity to men of science, who 
are generally compelled to publish at their own cost 
and charges, from the universal disinclination of the 
commercial booksellers to embark their capital in 
such hazardous projects. The import duties in 
America are so heavy, that illustrative works, printed 
in England, can find no purchasers among our 
Transatlantic brethren, distinguished, as they un- 
doubtedly are, by a much more national encourage- 
ment of science than exists with us, and where 
natural history, even in some of the most remote 
provinces of the Union, already has its regular 
professors. Petty jealousies, in such matters, if they 
really exist, ought surely to be laid aside; where 
no profit worth naming can be derived, the idea 
of competition is perfectly ridiculous. We should 
