Maclure's Letters^ 16 1 



early an age they are capable of being taught most of the 

 useful arts and sciences ; and the advantages will be infinite 

 when ancient prejudices can be so far removed as to teach 

 them all they are capable of learning by instruments and 

 designs, calculated to bring many of even the difficult prob- 

 lems in mathematics within the reach of their comprehen- 

 sion. It will be an immense saving of the most valuable 

 gift of nature, time, and tend greatly to the advancement of 

 civilization. I go in a few days to Paris, where I intend to 

 sell my house, as Mr. Phiquepal goes to Philadelphia, 

 with all his pupils as professors, to teach the ystem he has 

 been perfecting these five years. Thence I go to the 

 south, perhaps to Sicily in the winter, and in the spring to 

 the United States. Mr. Robert Owen, of New Lanark, has 

 just decided to make the United States the field of his future 

 experiments on the facility, utility, satisfaction, self appro- 

 bation, and pleasure of rendering the great mass of industri- 

 ous and productive classes prudent, happy, and wise. He 

 has purchased all the lands upon the Wabash, belonging to 

 the Harmonists, with all the improvements, and goes there 

 to arrange his plans of procuring the greatest sum of happi- 

 ness to the greatest number. His liberal, philanthropic inten- 

 tions cannot fail to interest all true friends of humanity, who 

 must join in sincere good wishes for his success. 



I have sent the last volume of the Wernerian Society, 

 and the first three Numbers of the Westminster Review, which, 

 thinking it the best and the only one capable of doing jus- 

 tice to our country, 1 subscribe for, to be sent regularly to 

 the Society, and shall likewise send any of the transactions of 

 the Geological Society that may have been published since 

 you got the last. I remain yours sincerely, 



WM. MACLURE, 

 London, 10th Sept. 1824. 

 Professor Silliman, 

 Yale College, New-Haven. 



Basalt — Natural History Society at Belfast — Progress of 

 improvement in the British European Domains^ 



Dear Sir, 



I WROTE you from Dublin, by the Dublin packet, and pro- 

 mised to send the Geological Society a pillar of articulated 

 Basalt, from the Giant's Causeway, but was prevented by a 

 prohibition by two of the parties and a Bishop, who pretend- 



Vol. IX.— No. I. 21 



