iv INTRODUCTION. 



To prevent this, I have placed what belongs to Natural 

 Riiiory in one-volume or appendix, and in fo doing I hope 

 to meet the approbation of my fcientific botanical readers, 

 by laying the different fubjects all together before them, 

 without fubjecting them to the trouble of turning over 

 different books to get at any one of them. 'I he figures, 

 landfcapes,and a few other plates of this kind, are illuftra- 

 tions of what immediately paffes in the page ; thefe de- 

 fcriptions feldom occupy more than a few lines, and there- 

 fore fuch plates cannot be more ornamentally or ufefully 

 placed than oppofite to the page which treats of them. 



Some further confideration was neceflary in placing the 

 maps, and the Appendix appeared to me to be by far the 

 moil proper part for them. The maps, whether fuch as are 

 general of the country, or thofe adapted to ferve particular 

 itineraries, ihould always be laid open before the reader, 

 till he has made himfelf perfectly matter of the bearings 

 and diftances of the principal rivers, mountains, or pro- 

 vinces where the fcene of action is then laid. Maps that 

 fold he generally but one way, and are moiily of ftrong pa- 

 per, fo that when they are doubled by an inattentive hand, 

 contrary to the original fold they got at binding, they break, 

 and come afunder in quarters and fquare pieces, the map 

 is deftroyed, and the book ever after incomplete ; whereas, 

 even if this misfortune happens to a map placed in the 

 Appendix, it may either be raken out and joined anew, or 

 replaced at very little expence by a-frefh map from the 

 bookfellcr. 



I shall detain the reader but a few minutes with what 



I have further to fay concerning the particular iubjects of 



3 Natural 



