498 



Bibliographical Notices. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



I^atural History as a Branch of General Education. By Robert Pat- 

 terson. Belfast. 8vo, 28 pp. 1840. 



Therk are perhaps very few persons who are not sensibly alive to 

 the objects of study which Natural History presents, and yet the pro- 

 jxjrtion of those who pursue any department of it as a science is but 

 small. We may probably find an explanation of this circumstance 

 in the operation of two causes. In the first place, the scientific pur- 

 suit of zoology or botany cannot be so profitably applied to the arts 

 by which wealth is accumulated as many other departments of sci- 

 ence, amongst which we may mention chemistry and the various 

 branches of natural philosophy. Men of science must live as well 

 as other people ; and it is the lot of a few only to be able to pursue 

 science independently of their means of subsistence. 



In the second place. Natural History has never occupied a pro- 



