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Art. XI. J^otice of Professor MitchiWs Edition of 

 Cuvier^s Essay on the Theory of the Earth. 



X HE American scientific public are under obligations to 

 Professor Mitchill for bringing this book within their reach. 

 It is one of the most eloquent, impressive, and instructive 

 works on this grand but obscure subject, with which the world 

 has ever been favoured. The reader is no sooner drawn, 

 within the current of Cuvier's eloquence, than he is borne 

 along almost without the power or wish to escape. It is be- 

 lieved there are few intelligent and enlightened persons, whe- 

 ther geologists or not, who would fail to be gratified by a book 

 which secures the understanding by a strict course of reason- 

 ing from facts, and delights the taste by a style bold, terse, and 

 lucid, but at the same time rich and flowing. 



The analysis of this work has been ably performed in Eu- 

 rope, and there is, therefore, the less necessity to attempt it 

 here. While we take the liberty thus to recommend it, we do 

 not hold ourselves strictly bound to the admission of every one 

 of Cuvier's doctrines ; and might, perhaps, wish that in a few 

 instances he had been somewhat more explicit, or somewhat 

 more qualified. 



The additions by Professor Jameson, of Edinburgh, are 

 valuable and interesting, and are retained in the present 

 edition. 



Those by Professor Mitchill will be perused with pleasure 

 and advantage. The learned author has assembled, in one 

 view, a great mass of facts, partly resulting from his own 

 journeys and observations, and partly deduced from other 

 respectable sources. We have no doubt that most of these 

 facts will be considered by the scientific world as very interest- 

 ing, whatever views they may entertain of the conclusions 

 built upon them. The author has occupied himself principally 

 upon those portions of the United States, which, by the organ- 

 ized remains both of animals and vegetables, with which they 

 more or less aliound, exhibit the most decisive and interesting 



