32 MEMOIR OF PALLAS. 
see how often progress is arrested by the slightest 
circumstance. The most astonishing thing of all is, 
that he himself neglected to procecute these beauti- 
ful observations.” 
To Cuvier’s remarks on this portion of the trea- 
tise, we must not omit to add his general estimate 
of this too much neglected work. “ We cannot,” he 
observes, “ behold, without astonishment, so young 
an author unite the merits of the two great masters 
who then divided between them the empire of 
science. He boldly took for his models the great 
French naturalist and his assistant Daubenton; he 
charged himself with their double work, and with- 
out allowing himself to be dazzled by their authority, 
he conjoined, with the profound sagacity of the one 
and the patient accuracy of the other, those precise 
and methodical views which were too much ne- 
glected by them both.” 
After this brief critique and analysis, both of that 
part of the work which treats of the mollusca, and 
of the vertebrata, no one we apprehend can doubt 
that this was a production of the rarest merit; 
which, appearing within a few months after the 
Elinchus Zoophytorum, could not fail most deservedly 
to raise the character of the author to the very first 
rank among naturalists. 
In the dedication prefixed to this work, the author 
laid before the Prince of Orange a plan for a voyage 
to the Cape of Good Hope and to the other Dutch 
settlements in the East Indies, and which, impelled 
by his wonted ardour for scientific knowledge, he 
