64 MEMOIR OF PENNANT. 



gist ; yet, unwilling to fling away all my labours, 

 do now deliver them to the public under the title of 

 the Arctic Zoology." In winding up his task, 

 Pennant concludes with the following remarks, 

 which are worthy of being recorded, as equally 

 honourable to his enthusiasm in the cause of physi- 

 cal science, and to the amiable modesty with which 

 he estimates his own exertions : " I have now 

 done as much as the lights of my days have fur- 

 nished me with. In some remote age, when the 

 British offspring shall have pervaded the whole of 

 their vast Continent (North America); or the 

 descendants of the hardy Russians colonized the 

 western parts, from their distant Kamtschatka 

 the road in future time to new conquests; after, 

 perhaps, bloody contests between the progeny of 

 Britons and Russians about countries to which 

 neither have any right ; after the deaths of thousands 

 of claimants, and the extirpation of poor natives by 

 the sword and new-imported diseases ; then a quiet 

 settlement may take place, civilization ensue, and 

 the arts of peace be cultivated ; then may learning, 

 the luxury of the s,oul, diffuse itself through the 

 nation, and some Naturalist arise, who, with spirit 

 and abilities, may explore each boundary of the 

 ocean which separates the Asiatic and American 

 Continents ; may render certain what I can only 

 suspect ; and by his observations on the feathered 

 tribes, their flights and migrations, give utility to 

 mankind } in moral and economical operations, by 



