4 Prospectus. 



As it is indispensable to the support and continuance of this 

 work, that the proprietor be not exposed to the losses and delays 

 attending the collection of so small a sum, it will be required to 

 be paid on subscription, and will not be furnished without. 



All scientific communications, post-paid, to be addressed, " 3o 

 the Editor of the Monthly American Journal of Geology a?id JVatu- 

 ral Science, Philadelphia.^' 



Communications on business to be addressed to " Henry H. 

 Porter, proprietor of the Literary Rooms, SfC. 121 Chesnut street, 

 Philadelphia.^' 



The work will be conducted by G. W. Featherstonhaugh, Esq. 

 Fellow of the Geological Society of London, Member of the 

 American Philosophical Society, (fee. &c. 



John Mardon, Bookseller, No. 30, Jewin Crescent, Jewin street, 

 Aldersgate, London, England, Agent. 



Philadelphia, May 20th, 1831. 



INTRODUCTION. 



We are pledged in the Prospectus, to give in each number " a 

 continuous Essay on Geology as a science, treated in an elemen- 

 tary manner, divested of all technicalities : so that the great 

 principles, from which philosophical views of the arrangements 

 and operations of nature are drawn, may be lucidly brought for- 

 ward." 



A series of such Essays, carried on, as we love to hope it will 

 be, for a long period of time to come, will comprehend particu- 

 lars of the highest importance, and form, at length, a work of 

 some magnitude. Moved, therefore, by a desire to open the most 

 ample field for the instruction and amusement of our readers, we 

 propose to begin to redeem that pledge, by drawing up an epitome 

 of the progress of Natural Science. But first we would re- 

 mark, that there are many persons who have not yet turned their 

 attention to Natural History, and who are still deterred from 

 doing it, by the apparently insurmountable difficulties presented 

 by the multifarious objects in nature, and the technicalities and 

 names, so far apart from the ordinary terms of language. Such 

 persons are agreeably disappointed, when they come to discover 

 how gentle the gradations are between each step in the order of 



