404 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



ments of natural history. By this munificence she 

 has been enabled to give to the world all the zoo- 

 logical discoveries made on her scientific expeditions, 

 besides aiding the exertions of her naturalists at 

 home, by enabling them to bring out a series of 

 illustrated folio volumes, no less valuable than splen- 

 did, at once attesting the liberality of the government 

 and the judgment it has exercised. How much can be 

 done, even with a tenth of the above sum, by judgment 

 and discretion, has been made apparent by the public- 

 ation of the Fauna Americana Borealia, containing the 

 zoological discoveries made in Franklin and Richard- 

 son's expeditions ; and which, but for the grant of 

 1,000/. towards the engraving of the plates, would 

 most assuredly never have seen the light. Were the 

 government fully aware of the extent of the satis- 

 faction felt by all the well-informed classes, at this 

 maiden act of generosity, small though it was, that 

 even in the periodicals and newspapers of the day 

 there was but one opinion expressed, at the very 

 time when the cry for economy and cheap govern- 

 ment was at its height, — if the present administra- 

 tion, we repeat, were but fully aware of all this, they 

 would never again hesitate to propose similar or 

 even more liberal grants, and thus gather to them- 

 selves those " golden opinions from all sorts of 

 men," which the country has long wished to give, 

 and which its science has so long languished for. 



(275.) But the occasions for exercising such liber- 

 ality on undertakings connected with national dis- 

 coveries, are few and far between ; and we cannot 

 hope, in this our generation, to witness direct 

 patronage extended to private undertakings, hew- 



