ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
3 17 
vi., vii., viii. In volume i., p. 134, for 1834, lie specifies the point at which 
Cuvier left the science, and how much his discovery has added to it. 
Upon the living world, upon the processes at present in operation for the 
creation of little spheres, on those humble constructors who accomplish such 
great things, we owe all our information to the English voyagers, the Nelsons,* 
the Darwins, and others. They are minute and very simple observers, generally 
timid in their assertions, which have been of the boldest character, they having 
seen the very heart of the mystery, and caught Nature in the act. Read 
Darwin (whose researches have been most ably summed up by Sir Charles 
Lyell) for information on the prodigious manufacture of chalk, divided alter¬ 
nately between the fishes and the polypes, which are building up islands with 
it, and will soon construct continents. 
England alone, that immense poulpe whose arms enfold the earth, and who 
incessantly feels and examines it, could observe it thoroughly in its distant 
solitudes, where at its ease it continues its everlasting procreation. The 
great theories formerly advanced in explanation of the cataclysms, epochs, and 
revolutions of the earth, will lose, perhaps, something of their importance. 
For we know now that everything is in a state of constant change. 
Does Europe perceive that quite a complete literature has sprung from 
Great Britain in the last twenty years 1 I describe it as an immense com¬ 
mission of inquiry into the condition of the globe, undertaken by the English. 
They alone could do it. And why ? Because other nations travel, but only the 
English reside. They daily recommence at all points of the earth the life- 
study of a Robinson Crusoe : and this is done by a crowd of isolated observers, 
led abroad by commercial speculation, and hence so much the less systematical 
in their inquiries. 
* “Nous devons tout aux navigateurs Anglais, aux Nelson, aux Darwin,” etc. 
