386 Miscellanies, 



of Combustion or Electro-Negative Bodies, Non-Metallic Combustibles or 

 Electro-Positive Bodies, Metals, Organic Bodies, Vegetable and Animal, 

 with an Appendix. 



This order is probably the most unexceptionable. There is no perfect 

 arrangement ; none that will avoid inconvenient anticipations, or that 

 will bring into one group all the members of the same subject. The best 

 course is to anticipate as little as possible ; to explain the nature of the 

 materials which we must employ so far as to render our processes intelli- 

 gible, and to revert, as far as necessary, so that either sooner or later, every 

 thing will be explained. This course Dr. Beck has judiciously pursued, 

 and his work is a perspicuous and condensed abstract of the science, and 

 is well adapted to the object for which it was written. 



14. Notice of a Manual of Conchology according to the system laid 

 doivn by Lamarck, loith the late improvements by De Blainville, for 

 students ; by Thomas Wyatt, M. A., in a letter to him from Isaac Lea, 

 Esq., dated Philadelphia, December 19, 1838. — " Dear Sir — T have ex- 

 amined your 'Manual of ^onchology,' formed from the works of Lamarck 

 and Blainville, and con\.;^'"r it well adapted to the introduction of the stu- 

 dent into the science of conchology. The plates, which are from the ex- 

 cellent work of Blainville, are generally very well done, and calculated to 

 aid the tyro in obtaining a knowledge of the genera of this interesting 

 branch of natural history. 



" I sincerely wish you success in this work, which must have cost you 

 much labor. Should it pass to another edition, I would advise the inser- 

 tion of a plate with the various parts of shells, with proper definitions 

 in the text. The name of each shell should also be upon the plates 

 throughout." 



Mr. Lea has, with good reason, commended the plates of this work, 

 and it is no small advantage that they are printed on excellent paper, 

 which will bear using both by the quiet student and the traveller. Offi- 

 cers of the navy and in the merchant service, will find this a very con- 

 venient, and we doubt not, useful manual, by which to direct their obser- 

 vations while collecting shells to enrich their own cabinet as well as those 

 of public institutions and of private individuals. — Eds. 



15. Eulogiiims on the late Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch. — The death of 

 this distinguished man produced a strong impression on the public mind, 

 and called forth many tributes of respect. Three eulogiums were pro- 

 nounced, severally, by the Hon. Judge White, at Salem, and at Boston by 

 Rev. Alexander Young, and by Hon. John Pickering, the latter before the 

 American Academy, May 29, 1838. Mr. Young's discourse was, by 

 particular request, revised for this Journal, and appeared in the October 



