HE present Volume is intended to furnish a very general view of 

 the leading appearances of Physical Nature the economy of the 

 heavens and the earth with incidental notices of the progress of 

 discovery, and pictorial representations of remarkable phenomena and 

 interesting localities. Regarding it as one of the happy tendencies 

 of the age, to be more in favour of intellectual occupations than of 

 the vulgar animal recreations that were formerly courted, the writer 

 has endeavoured to supply a digest of the knowledge obtained re- 

 specting the " wondrous whole," of which we form a part, which the enterprise of 

 the proprietors of the work has profusely illustrated. 



In submitting the accomplishment of this design to the judgment of the public, 

 the writer may be allowed to observe, that he was called to the task at a very short 

 notice ; that disadvantageous circumstances, which could neither be foreseen nor 

 avoided, have much interfered with its execution ; but that he has honestly en- 

 deavoured, amid professional engagements, and oft-recurring physical debility, to 

 carry out the design of the projectors. Some literal errors, almost necessarily 

 attendant on a periodical issue, have been corrected in this Edition, and an attempt 

 has also been made to introduce the recent discoveries in Astronomy, so that it is 

 now hoped the work will be found tolerably free from error. 



THE AUTHOR. 



M363315 



