Comparative Encouragement to tfie Study, 6fC. 391 



tinent, and in some situations, is studded with brilliant small 

 garnets. 



This rock as well as the gneiss has been considered by some 

 of aqueous origin, from the regularity of its beds, and especially 

 from its enclosing occasionally fragments of breccia of quartz, 

 granite, and even Hmestone. This conglomerate character has 

 been thought important towards deciding its aqueous character. 

 We have seen, however, in the case of gneiss, that a parallel 

 disposition of mineral laminae, is also common to rocks of avowed 

 igneous origin ; and as brecciated fragments of older rocks have 

 been found in trap veins, their appearance in mica slate is 

 only a phenomenon of the same kind : primary limestone, it is 

 true, is not an older rock, according to the geological series, than 

 mica slate ; but nodules, and patches of this mineral substance, 

 have been found even in gneiss, as we shall have occasion here- 

 after to state. 



We shall consider the important subject of mineral and me- 

 tallic veins, as they are found in the primary rocks, in our next 

 number. We purposely defer it, as it is probable we shall com- 

 mence, in that number, a mineralogical and geological account 

 of what is called the gold region of this country. We hope to 

 make this more interesting by a general account of mineral and 

 metallic veins, one of the most curious and interesting branches 

 of geology. 



ON THE COMPARATIVE ENCOURAGEMENT GIVEN TO THE STUDY 

 OF NATURAL HISTORY IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA. 



A PAPER on so interesting a subject as our title comprehends, 

 ought to be favourably received in this country. If the compa- 

 rison should prove favourable to us, our naturalists will not be 

 without encouragement, and, at any rate, it will be well enough 

 for them to know the truth. We have long wished to lay before 

 our readers some details and reflections concerning that branch 

 of our literature, which is more or less devoted to natural sci- 

 ence, and the late republication of Audubon's Ornithological 

 Biography, furnished us with an agreeable opportunity for doing 

 so. On the appearance of that work, — which, independent of 



