X PREFACE. 



scientific friends and correspondents have so liberally afforded me : but 

 there are others to whom a deeper debt of gratitude is due ; who have 

 taken a Uvely interest in the success and reputation of the authoi-, and 

 have patronized his undertaking with a zeal and liberahty far exceeding 

 his most sanguine expectations*. To these excellent and much valued 

 friends, I am indeed under infinite obligations ; and whatever may be the 

 fate of this volume, the consciousness that it has procured me the ac- 

 quaintance and esteem of characters as eminent in science, as they are 

 estimable in private life, will more than compensate for any pains and 

 anxiety it may have occasioned. 



Castle Place, Lewes, 

 May 1st, 1822. 



* Among these, Mrs. Durrant, and William Baldock, Esq. of Mailing House, near 

 Lewes, merit my warmest acknowledgments. 



