34 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



sciences, lie fearlessly devotes himself to the 

 encountering of dangers and privations which 

 few are capable of conceiving, who have not 

 ^vitnessed the awful grandeur of the solitude 

 of an American wilderness, thickly studded 

 with mighty trees, from eighty to a hundred 

 feet in height, with the birds of the desert as 

 his only companions ; where the awful silence 

 is only disturbed, by day, by the scream of the 

 Vulture, the Eagle, or the Raven, and by night 

 the dreary hootings of the Great-eared Owl 

 and his congeners, while at every step he is 

 liable to tread on the poisonous Rattlesnake, 

 or other noxious reptiles. 



" I hope he may be long preserved to pursue 

 that science to which he is so devotedly attached, 

 and to complete a work which never has been^ 

 and, in all probability, never will be equalled. 

 I remain, sir, your obedient humble servant, 



" Tho. Brown." 



We close this sketch by an extract from 

 Cuvier's Report to the Royal Academy of 

 Sciences of Paris, which is not only interesting 

 as being the opinion of the greatest of natu- 

 ralists, but also from its pointing out the dis- 

 tinction which ought to exist betwixt a picture 

 and a representation of an object in Natural 

 History. 



