396 Comparative Encouragement to the Study, ^c. 



plication of geological principles, to many important mines which 

 had been abandoned. The great afflux of knowledge, flowing 

 in this direction, could not be pent up in the ancient beds, but 

 sought new channels to relieve its own pressure, and to fertilize 

 the minds that were thirsting for it. At this moment. Great 

 Britain publishes about thirty distinct works of the same charac- 

 ter, of which five are quarterly, besides five quarterly reviews 

 of hterature, of the class of the Edinburgh and Quarterly. In 

 addition to these, are the numerous independent works on various 

 branches of natural history, which are annually published, pro- 

 ceeding from the pens of Buckland, Mantell, De la Beche, Lyell, 

 and a host of others ; as well as the papers on natural history 

 found in Encyclopedias, and periodical works more immediately 

 devoted to polite literature. Within the same period, too, have 

 arisen at least forty distinct societies in the various cities and 

 towns of Great Britain, devoted more immediately to the illus- 

 tration of the geology and natural history of their own neigh- 

 bourhood; and containing, among their members, many able and 

 enthusiastic naturalists, whose care is to enrich the libraries and 

 collections of their respective societies. 



In France, the spirit of inquiry, under all political changes 

 protected by the government, has developed itself in an equally 

 extraordinary manner. Before the year 1818, there were but 

 two journals where natural history was cherished ; M. de Blain- 

 ville's Journal de physique et d'histoire naturelle, and the Bulletin 

 de la societe Philomatiqtee ; at present there are no less than eigh- 

 teen monthly publications connected with natural science, six of 

 which are published in Paris, besides thirteen annual works that 

 appear under the auspices of societies established in different 

 parts of the country. The total number of regular and irregular 

 works of this character, published in France, is thirly-eight. 

 None of these appear quarterly, and the French periodicals are 

 somewhat deficient in that external neatness which is so liberally 

 bestowed upon those which come from the English press. Nei- 

 ther have the French produced any thing to vie with the splen- 

 did sections and illustrations which enrich (he Transactions of the 

 Geological Society of London, the beauty of Mr. Sowerby's Mi- 

 neral Conchology, or the neatness and variety of Loudon's Maga- 

 zine of Natural History. It is to be regretted, that the country 

 which has produced the Regne animal, the Ossemens fossiles, the 



