14 INTRODUCTION. 



considerable advantage. Its dried specimens are preserved with in-' 

 comparably more ease than those of animals, and it is thought to be an 

 object worthy even of princely munificence to found collections of 

 living plants, and to preserve them in the Botanical Gardens, as is 

 seen in the Royal establishment of Kew in England, and of the Gar- 

 den of Plants in Paris. Even public spirited individuals* have, either 

 by their own efforts, or by the assistance of private citizens, like them- 

 selves, formed botanical gardens, of signal beauty and utility ; pre- 

 senting in one grand perspective, the vegetable glories of the world. 

 The study of the science is thus facilitated, in a surprising degree, 

 and the botanical student finds, within the bounds of at most a few 

 acres, the plants, to have seen which, in their native soils, would have 

 demanded a life of adventure. The vegetable kingdom affords most 

 of the food of men and animals, many medicines, and many materials 

 for the arts. 



3. CHEMISTRY. The remaining branch of science relating to nat- 

 ural bodies, begins where Natural Philosophy and Natural History 

 stop. As the gleanings of its early history may be found in the pre- 

 faces of the larger elementary works on chemistry, we shall here omit 

 the vague annals of its infancy, and the delusions of its middle age. 

 . It would exceed our limits to trace the progress of chemistry 

 from age to age ; to unfold the delusions of ALCHEMY, whose ob- 

 ject was to discover the philosopher's stone, an imaginary substance, 

 which, it was supposed, would convert the baser metals into gold 

 and silver ; or, to speak of the equally delusive pursuit, after the 

 GRAND CATHOLICON, or universal remedy, which was to remove eve- 

 ry disease ; to avert death, and confer terrestrial immortality upon 

 man ; or to mention the imaginary ALCAHEST, or universal solvent;, 

 whose power it was supposed nothing could resist. The alchem- 

 ist indeed imagined, that these miraculous virtues resided in one 

 and the same substance, and during the dark ages, most of the cut 

 tivators of what was then called chemistry, smitten with the deli-, 

 rium of alchemy, pursued their occult processes, in cells and caverns, 

 remote from the light of heaven, and wasted their days and nights, 

 their talents and their fortunes, in a vain pursuit. The alchemist 

 however accumulated many valuable facts, which have been em- 

 ployed, with good advantage, in laying the foundations of modern 

 chemical science. 



Some knowledge of chemical arts is coeval with the earliest stages 

 of human society, and it has happened with this, as with other branch- 

 es of natural knowledge, that many facts were discovered, and accu- 



*As was done by Mr. Roscoe and Dr. Currie of Liverpool, Dr. Hope of Edin- 

 burgh, Mr. Bartram of Philadelphia, and Dr. Hosack of New York. 



