Introductory Remarks. 5 



strive for one object, a few such giants in their array form 

 a smaller proportion of their power; and every one may be 

 assured, that the slighter efforts which he makes, repeated 

 or aided by his companions, really hold a pre-eminent place 

 amid the means of universal progress. If men associate 

 for such purposes any where, it is scarcely possible but 

 that something will be elicited among them, which other 

 men will gratefully receive. There is everywhere a wide 

 domain of the unknown around us: it is easy anywhere to 

 reach the boundaries of what we know, and find something 

 conjectured which needs to be confirmed, or something 

 mysterious which needs to be searched into. In other 

 lands where men have been most active, they feel them- 

 selves still attracted to ceaseless or augmented activity. 

 If where most has been done, there be scarcely a thinking 

 man who rests unstirred by the bustle and fervor of scien- 

 tific research, little which is praiseworthy will be found to 

 characterize that state of society where no corresponding 

 impulse is felt from the movement. 



If such a union among us fail or be fruitless, it cannot 

 be because there is no need of information, or because 

 there is nothing to be learnt. True — men have done a 

 great deal here, in preparing the means to sustain a popu- 

 lous community, round the stone which used to receive the 

 name of a passing ship, and was left in solitude; but this 

 community has not otherwise done much to develope the 

 condition and resources of the strange territory it is placed 

 in; and of those who have been investigating the teeming 

 portions of nature's domain around us, all have been 

 foreign to the land they illustrated. If there even were 

 here nothing requiring farther research, we should soon 

 sink below our due share of knowledge, if we did not 

 follow the progress men are making elsewhere. But in 

 fact, besides the sciences which may be studied equally 

 well, or more successfully in other countries, our land is 

 in general estimation superabundant in things interesting 

 and little known. The small beaten spot which men have 

 secured amidst the immensity of attainable information, is 

 comparatively far less here than in other districts of the 

 world. In every department of knowledge, there must 

 be many objects totally unknown which are of themselves 

 likely to be useful, or which if farther investigated, would 

 extend the usefulness of others. 



It is obvious, that almost every thing on which human 

 comfort is dependant, presents itself to us in a form some- 

 what different from that which it bears elsewhere. We 



