X1V PREFACE. 
been for several years more or less concerned in the management 
of the Journal, and from his education, position, pursuits and 
taste, as well as from affinity, being almost identified with the 
editor, he seemed to be quite a natural ally, and his adoption into 
the editorship was scarcely a violation of individual unity. His 
assistance has proved to be very important:—his near relation 
to the senior editor prevents him from saying more, while justice 
does not permit him to say less. 
It may be interesting to our readers to know something of the 
patronage of the Journal. It has never reached one thousand pay- 
ing subscribers, and has rarely exceeded seven or eight hundred 
—for many years it fluctuated between six and seven hundred. 
It has been far from paying a reasonable editorial compensation ; 
often it has paid nothing, and at present it does little more than 
pay its bills. ‘The number of engravings and the extra labor in 
printer’s composition, cause it to be an expensive work, while its 
patronage is limited. ’ 
It has a large gratuitous distribution, both at home and abroad, 
and an extensive good-will exchange with works often having 
no particular bearing upon its peculiar objects. . It has incurred a 
heavy extra expenditure in reprinting exhausted numbers, for the 
purpose of furnishing entire sets of the work. No application for 
an entire set has ever yet been disappointed, and complete sets of 
the volumes are to be found in many institutions and in the hands 
of many individuals, both in Europe and in the United States. 
Entire sets have often been presented gratuitously to our infant 
colleges and to scientific institutions and distinguished individu- 
als in Europe. A few remain on hand, and it is our intention 
to furnish them as long as we can afford to republish, or can 
repurchase numbers that have run out. 
The series of volumes must ever form a work of permanent 
interest on account of its exhibiting the progress of American 
science during the long period which it covers. Comparing 1817* 
with 1847, we mark on this subject a very gratifying change. 
The cultivators of science in the United States were then few— 
now they are numerous. Societies and associations of various 
* The date of the incipient movements. 
