32 MEMOIR OF PALLAS. 



Bee how often progress is arrested by the slightest 

 circumstance. The most astonishing thing of all is, 

 that he himself neglected to prosecute these beauti- 

 ful observations." 



To Cuvier's remarks on this portion of the trea- 

 tise, we must not omit to add his general estimate 

 of this too much neglected work. " We cannot," he 

 observes, " behold, without astonishment, so young 

 an author unite the merits of the two great masters 

 w^ho then divided between them the empire of 

 science. He boldly took for his models the great 

 French naturalist and his assistant Daubenton ; he 

 charged himself with their double work, and with- 

 out allowing himself to be dazzled by their authority, 

 he conjoined, with the profound sagacity of the one 

 and the patient accuracy of the other, those precise 

 and methodical views which were too much ne- 

 glected by them both." 



After this brief critique and analysis, both of that 

 part of the work which treats of the mollusca, and 

 of the vertebrata, no one we apprehend can doubt 

 that this was a production of the rarest merit; 

 which, appearing within a few months after the 

 Elinchus Zoophytorum^ could not fail most deservedly 

 to raise the character of the author to the very first 

 rank amongc naturalists. 



In the dedication prefixed to this work, the author 

 laid before the Prince of Orange a plan for a voyage 

 to the Cape of Good Hope and to the other Dutch 

 settlements in the East Indies, and which, impelled 

 by his wonted ardour for scientific knowledge, he 



