26 



men of learning, aided the progress of the science by their well 

 directed labours. 



One work published in 1726, deserves to be particularly noticed ; 

 since it plainly demonstrates, that learning may not be sufficient to 

 prevent an unsuspecting man, from becoming the dupe of excessive 

 credulity. It is worthy of being mentioned, on another account : 

 the quantity of censure and ridicule, to which its author was ex- 

 posed, served, not only to render his cotemporaries less liable to 

 imposition ; but also more cautious in indulging in unsupported 

 hypotheses. The work is intitled Lithographic Wirceburgensis Speci- 

 men Primum, and was"written by Dr. John Bartholomew Adam Be- 

 ringer. We are here presented with the representation of stones, 

 said to bear petrifactions of birds ; some with spread, others with 

 closed wings : bees and wasps, both resting in their curiously eon-* 

 structed cells, and in the act of sipping honey from expanded 

 flowers: spiders weaving their webs: moths and butterflies engender- 

 ing: and, to complete the absurdity, petrifactions representing the 

 sun, moon, stars, and comets, with many others too monstrous and 

 ridiculous to deserve even mention. These stones, artfully prepared, 

 had been deposited, purposely to dupe the enthuiasstic collector, 

 in a mountain, which he was in the habit of exploring. Unfortu- 

 nately, the silly and cruel trick succeeded so far, as to occasion to 

 him, who was the subject of it, so great a degree of mortification, 

 as, it is said, shortened his days. 



In the middle of the eighteenth century a more strict and close 

 mode of philosophising, than had been hitherto employed, appears 

 to have been generally adopted : this is evident in almost all the 

 writings which were published on these subjects at this period. 

 Correctness of judgment, and propriety in arrangement, became 

 now generally conspicuous. This we can without the least hesita- 

 tion, attribute, in a great measure, to the advantages which, this 



