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 



