68 Professor Mitchill’s Cuvier. 
Arr. XI. Notice of Professor Mitchill’s Edition of Cuvier’s 
Essay on the Theory of the Earth. 
Tue American scientific public are under obligations to | 
Professor Mitchill for bringing this- book within their reach. 
It is one of the most eloquent, impressive, and instructive 
works on this grand but obscure subject, with which the world 
has ever been favoured. ‘The reader is no sooner drawn 
within the current of Cuvier’s eloquence, than he is borne 
along almost without the power or wish to escape. It is 
believed there are few intelligent and enlightened persons, 
whether geologists or not, who would fail to be gratified by @ 
book which secures the understanding by a strict course of 
reasoning from facts, and delights the taste by a style, bold, 
terse, and lucid, but at the same time rich and flowing. “ 
The analysis of this work has been ably performed it 
Europe, and there is, therefore, the less necessity to attempt 
it here. While we take the liberty thus to recommend it, we 
. do not hold ourselves strictly bound to the admission of every 
one of Cuvier’s doctrines; and might, perhaps, wish, that ina 
few instances he had been somewhat more explicit, or some- 
what more qualified. 
The additions by Professor Jameson, of Edinburgh, are 
valuable and interesting, and are retained in the presem 
edition. 
Those by Professor Mitchill will be perused with pleasuré 
and advantage. ‘he learned author has assembled, in omé 
view, a great mass of facts, partly resulting from his ow® 
journeys and observations, and partly deduced from other 
respectable sources. We have no doubt that most of thesé 
facts will be considered by the scientific world as very interest: 
ing, whatever views they may entertain of the conclusions 
built upon them. The author has occupied himself principally 
upon those portions of the United States, which, by the orga” 
ized remains both of animals and vegetables, with which they 
more or less‘abound, exhibit the most decisive and interesting 
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