PRE F A C E. 



The fine arts are, perhaps, more highly 

 cultivated, and the liberal sciences more 

 generally diffused through all classes of the 

 community in the present day, than they 

 ever yet have been, since the enlightened 

 seras to which Greece and Rome owe their 

 matchless fame. 



Most of the various branches of Natural 

 History, that primeval science in which all 

 human beings are more or less concerned, 

 have been rendered familiar, and accessible 

 to every capacity and age. 

 b 



