398 Comparative Encouragement to the Study, iSfC. 



bi-monthly, and a quarterly ; the other two are from societies. 

 Belgium has two, Poland two, Sicily two, Savoy two, and Swit- 

 zerland seven. From the Cape of Good Hope we have the 

 South African Quarterly Philosophical Journal: and, above all, a 

 great promise of information in natural history, from the British 

 East India possessions, where there are already three annual 

 publications established, of a high character — the Asiatic Re- 

 searches, and the transactions of the Bombay and Madras Socie- 

 ties, besides a weekly publication at Calcutta. It is probable, that 

 through the enterprise of the many engineers in that country, in 

 the British service, several of whom unite the character of engi- 

 neer and naturalist, and the establishment of numerous new so- 

 cieties, that we shall soon be well informed of the natural history 

 and geology of that extensive peninsula. We shall conclude this 

 trans-atlantic statement by adding New Holland and Java, each 

 of which has its scientific society and publication ; and by stating, 

 that in the publications we have just enumerated, all those of a 

 strictly literary character are excluded, it being intended only 

 to speak of those, either entirely devoted to natural science, or 

 of such as habitually contain papers on the physical and natural 

 sciences, or reviews of the progress made in them. 



In speaking of the state of scientific literature on this side of 

 the Atlantic, we shall first briefly notice De la Sagra's Annales 

 delas Ciencias, begun at the Havana in 1829, and the bi-monthly 

 Journal of Science and the Arts published at Lima. The period 

 of repose may be said to have scarcely commenced for the other 

 governments of South America. We have httle doubt, however, 

 that Mexico, whose affairs appear to be in the hands of a wise 

 and moderate government, will soon turn her attention to natu- 

 ral science : the successful working of her mines will call into 

 action the resources of her mineralogists ; and happily for her, 

 the school of Del Rio is not yet extinct. That venerable and 

 respected individual is at present in this country, superintending 

 the publication of a work intended for public instruction in his 

 own country, in chemical science. Luis de Alaman, too, one 

 of the ministers of state, is an intelligent and zealous friend to 

 science. In the British American colonies, the cause of natural 

 science is cherished : there is already a scientific society at St. 

 John's, in Newfoundland, a literary and historical society at 

 Quebec, and a society of natural history at Montreal. These 



