4 A NOTICE OF THE 



arranged according to any rational method, which enables men 

 easily to perceive their general and mutual relations. Science, 

 then, simply means a systematic arrangement of acquired facts. 

 The natural sciences essentially consist in systematic arrangements 

 of the facts and phenomena observed in nature. 



In the broad acceptation of the term, natural history includes 

 faithful descriptions of all natural objects. Natural science does 

 not consist merely in making a catalogue of all the plants and 

 animals on the surface of the globe; it embraces a history of the 

 structure, composition, mode of existence, and growth of all 

 natural objects, and seeks to ascertain the laws which determine 

 the innumerable shapes in which matter, both organic and inor- 

 ganic, presents itself to our senses. All the phenomena observed 

 in the atmosphere above, as well as in the earth beneath, fall 

 within its domain. Chemistry is included among the natural 

 sciences, because the laws which regulate the affinities, the 

 motions ever existing among the molecules or ultimate atoms 

 which constitute matter, are among the subjects pertaining to the 

 researches of naturalists. 



A brief allusion to some branches of natural science will 

 enable us to perceive that its influence is advantageously felt in 

 many departments of those arts which contribute largely to the 

 well being of society. 



Botany does not consist exclusively in distinguishing from each 

 other the various forms of vegetation, and recognizing them by 

 names derived from the Greek and Latin languages. It does not 

 teach us simply to divide the world's flora into orders, tribes, 

 families, genera, and species, according to an arbitrary system of 

 arrangement, and to know the peculiarities by which they may 

 be certainly distinguished, one from the other. Botany includes 

 a study of the anatomy and physiology of the vegetable king- 

 dom. Through this study we acquire a knowledge of the struc- 

 ture, mode of growth, and the kind of diet upon which plants 

 depend for sustenance, as well as the appropriate functions of 

 their several parts, and the circumstances which influence vegeta- 

 ble existence. From it we have learned that plants derive nourish- 

 ment from the earth, through means of roots whose function is to 

 separate from the soil those salts or other materials which enter 

 into the composition of their tissues ; and that, through the 

 medium of leaves, they breathe the air which is essential to their 



