12 INTRODUCTION. 



2. NATURAL HISTORY describes the external appearance or at 

 least the distinctive characters of all natural bodies. Its numerous 

 sub-divisions, are all included under Zoology, Mineralogy and Botany. 



ZOOLOGY, which includes the whole animal world, comprehends 

 also a great number of subdivisions, e. g. ornithology, ichthyology, 

 herpetology, entomology, conchology, &c. As it is conversant about 

 animated beings, it inquires also into their habits, their food, their re- 

 production, their decay and their death. Strictly, man is at the head 

 of this department of Natural History. Zoology begins with man 

 and ends with the snail and the oyster ; and in its course it embraces 

 the elephant and the mouse, the lion and the mole, the whale and 

 the minim, the eagle and the gnat. 



Among gigantic animals, the whale, the larger seals, the rhinoce- 

 ros, the hippopotamus, the wild buffalo, the giraffe, the camel and 

 the elephant, are signal examples, and among the reptiiia, the boa 

 constrictor and the anaconda are sometimes of enormous size. In 

 zoology, living animals are of course more interesting and more in- 

 structive subjects of study than dead ones, however w r ell preserved. 



A menagerie, is one of the most gratifying kinds of museums, and 

 these exhibitions, as regards especially the larger and more perfect 

 wild animals, afford very fine opportunities for the study of zoology. 

 The panthers and the elks of America, the rein deer of Lapland, 

 the lions, the camelopards and the zebras of Africa, and the royal 

 tigers, the hyenas and the elephants of Asia, torn from their native 

 forests and dens, are imprisoned not only in the apartments of Exe- 

 ter 'Change, of the Tower of London, and of the Garden of Plants 

 of Paris, but in the cages of the travelling caravans which have now 

 become common in this country. 



But, where all opportunities from museums, whether of dead or 

 living animals, are wanting, zoology may still be studied, with good 

 advantage, by the aid of the numerous works on this science, illus- 

 trated as most of them are by accurate engravings. 



MINERALOGY AND GEOLOGY comprise all that relates to the satehil 

 constitution of our planet, including its atmosphere and variiik gases, 

 as well as its waters, its metals, its salts, its combustibles, arftfitEJ garthy 

 combinations. The study embraces not only mountain^ #dd conti- 

 nents, but the pebbles under our feet, the sand ofl'M Chores and 

 the dust that is borne on the winds. It attempts to account for the 

 origin and causes of the present state of things, and it contemplates 

 the impending changes, decay and dissolution of the firm substratum 

 of our globe. Minerals, although to some extent constantly before 

 us, are, for the greater part, far more inaccessible than vegetables 

 and animals. Many of them are drawn from the recesses of the 

 earth, from the caverns and mines remote from the light of day. 

 In this department then, although something may be done with the 



