PREFACE. Xlll 



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schools, and from its recommendations as a study for 



the young, every encouragement should be afforded. 



The increasing attention to the study of natural his- 

 tory is reckoned among the late improvements in 

 education in this country. Professor Silliman makes 

 the following observation on this point in his American 

 Journal of Science. " An extensive cultivation of the 

 physical sciences is peculiar to an advanced state of so- 

 ciety, and evinces in a country where they flourish, a 

 highly improved state of the arts, and a great degree 

 of intelligence in the community. To this state of 

 things we are now fast approximating. The ardent 

 curiosity regarding these subjects, already enkindled 

 in the public mind, the very respectable attainments in 

 science which we have already made, and our rapidly 

 augmenting means of information in books, instruments, 

 collections, and teachers, afford ground for the happiest 

 anticipations." 



Boston, July 23, 1819. 

 6 



