REVIEW. 



I. A Discourse on some of the Principal Desiderata in 

 Natural History , and on the best Means of promoting 

 the Study of this Science, in the United- States. Read 

 before the Philadelphia Linnean Society, on the 10th 

 of June, 1807. By Benjamin Smith Barton, 

 M. Z>., fcjfc 



THE, Philadelphia Linnean Society was 

 established for the promotion of Natural History. Its 

 original founders (the greater number of whom were 

 young men), ardently attached to the study of nature, 

 perceived the want of an institution which should be 

 exclusively devoted to the cultivation of the different 

 branches of natural history : an institution similar to , 

 those which have been founded, and have flourished, 

 in most of the countries of Europe, where the names, 

 the nature, and the properties of natural objects have 

 been studied with any degree of attention, or success. 



After a short view of the nature and objects of natural 

 history, the author of the Discourse proceeds to point 



