8 



mistaken for national feeling, must be at- 

 tended with beneficial consequences. To 

 those who feel disposed to undervalue the 

 useful and meritorious labours of foreigners, 

 it may be suggested whether some defer- 

 ence is not due to the judgments of those 

 learned individuals who have spent long 

 and laborious lives, often in the investiga- 

 tion of a single group of phenomena, in the 

 illustration of a single class, order, or genus 

 of natural objects. 



In the following pages we propose a 

 sketch, which must necessarily be brief, of 

 the progress made in Mineralogy, Geology, ^ 

 Botany, and Zoology, and shall then con- 

 clude with a notice of the travels performed 

 by individuals, or under the auspices of the 

 government, with a view of enlarging the 

 boundaries of Natural Science. 



MINERALOGY, 

 * 



The first attempts to arrange minerals by 

 a certain supposed resemblance in their 

 properties, was evidently unsatisfactory and 

 insufficient. The external characters and 

 crystalline structure shed further light on 

 this subject ; but it was not until the com- 



