Miscellanies. 211 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



1. This Journal — Notice forwarded to the Editor foam a distant city 

 in the South. — Remark : Were not this Journal principally the production 

 of others, it might appear improper for the editor to publish the following 

 communication, which was wholly unlooked for. The writer, who is not 

 a New England man, is a gentleman well and advantageously known in 

 the literary world, and of a profession in no way connected with the di- 

 rect cultivation of the sciences which the Journal sustains. 



It is his particular request that the notice may appear, and we know 

 not that we are precluded by considerations of delicacy. The writer of 

 the notice possesses a complete copy of the Journal in all its volumes. — 

 Editor.— April 3, 1838. 



To the Editor, — Dear Sir, — Having some leisure, in the evenings, 

 during the past year, I took up the American Journal of Science for read- 

 ing, and I soon found it such an interesting and valuable companion that 

 I read it through in course, omitting the articles on mathematics, and oc- 

 casionally on some other branches. Praise would be out of place here, 

 as I am addressing this note through the Editor himself; but I can, at 

 least, say to you that we owe you a debt of gratitude for having persevered 

 as you have done for twenty years, with this valuable publication. But 

 gratitude alone, though I believe it is widely felt, is a poor recompense for 

 such labors as these. The Journal of Science ought to be extensively 

 taken throughout our country. This publication is as large as most of 

 our own " quarterly reviews," and has a great number of expensive 

 plates, and not a little difficult composition, and yet the price per annum 

 is only a dollar more than other quarterly journals of popular litera- 

 ture. When bound, it makes a handsome and creditable addition to any 

 library : and a more valuable mass of matter than its 33 or 34 volumes 

 contains, I have never met with in the same number of pages. A great 

 portion of it is readable, or may easily be made so, in a family circle, and 

 certainly it would be a more profitable kind of reading than is often se- 

 lected for such occasions. To scientific men, or to one who like myself is 

 only a lagging inquirer in the ways of science, it is truly useful not only 

 as condensing a valuable portion of the successful scientific labors of other 

 countries, but also as affording a clear exhibition of much that is doing 

 in our own ; and to our adventurers in the scrutiny into nature, it is 

 a happy and valuable stimulus as well as guide and assistant. 



What a change has occurred in our country, since a few individuals, 

 who were then the solitary collectors of minerals, could find no one even 

 to give their specimens names. Now almost every principal town (not 

 to mention smaller ones,) has its Lyceum with a good cabinet: private 

 cabinets are to be met with every where ; and many of the states have sent 

 forth their public geologists to explore their territories and to search out the 



