10 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



prefer to profit by others' discoveries, than to 

 discover for themselves ; and Natural History 

 was attractive only to a few earnest seekers, who 

 found too much trouble in disencumbering their 

 own minds of the dreams of bygone generations, 

 (whether facts, like cockatrices, basilisks, and 

 krakens, the breeding of bees out of a dead ox, 

 and of geese from barnacles, or theories, like 

 those of the four elements, the vis plastrix in 

 Nature, animal spirits, and the other musty 

 heirlooms of Aristotleism and Neo-Platonisra,) 

 to try to make a science popular, which as yet 

 was not even a science at all. Honor to them, 

 nevertheless. Honor to Ray and his illustrious 

 contemporaries in Holland and France. Honor 

 to Seba and Aldrovandus ; to Pomet, with his 

 " Historie of Driigges " ; even to the ingenious 

 Don Saltero, and his tavern-museum in Cheyne 

 Walk. Where all was chaos, every man was 

 useful who could contribute a single spot of 

 organized standing-ground in the shape of a fact 

 or a specimen. But it is a question whether 

 Natural History would have ever attained its 

 present honors, had not Geology arisen, to con- 

 nect every otlier branch of Natural History with 

 problems as vast and awful as they ai'e captivat- 



