Vol.l/BrockportjN-Y. 
Published Monthly, 
July, 1885- No. 1. 
SOc. per Annum. 
The Study of Nature. 
BY CHAS. D. PENDELL. 
“To Iiim, who, in the love of nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty, as she glides 
Into his dark uiusings, with a mild 
And gentle sympathy that steals away 
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.”---BHYAKT. 
T he study of nature thus aptly 
portrayed, is as vast, varied 
and inexhaustible at the pres¬ 
ent time as it was thousands of years 
ago. Indeed, the beauty and grand- 
ner of nature’s work was undream¬ 
ed of by the ancients. Though the 
eitidal ot Athens,then,as now,looked 
upon the setting sun and her tem¬ 
ples flamed in his refulgent beams, 
while the silvery clouds of the 
YEgean sea rolled around verdant 
isles and sported in the azure vault 
of heaven, no Grecian poet was ever 
inspired by the sight. 
Idle placid waves of Italian lakes 
sparkled beneath a sunny sky, their 
waters laving the green shores that 
were teeming with the beauties and 
Iflessings ol nature; yet the Eomans 
saw them not. The stupendous 
grandner of the Alps was to them 
only a barrier against conquest, or 
a wall of defence. 
The study of nature has hardly 
liegun, and yet its immensity seems 
astounding. Looking into the min¬ 
eral kingdom we find many curious 
combinations and forms of the ele¬ 
ments. In the black masses of coal 
used in our tiirnaces and in the dia¬ 
mond, sparkling in the adornment 
ot a society belle, we recognize the 
same substance—carbon—in widely 
different forms. Again, we see two 
minerals entirely different in com¬ 
position very closely allied in appear¬ 
ance. We also observe that those 
minerals most useful to man present 
the least attractive, appearance;while 
those intended for ornament and 
adornment are remarkable for their 
symmetrical crystalization, their 
lustrous hues and varied combina¬ 
tion of colors. We pick up a rock 
and in it we see the fossil remains of 
a mollusk; but is that all? Far 
from it. That fossil has a history 
reaching hack thousands—perhaps 
millions of years. It tell« of a time 
when the place we now tread was a 
shoreless sea swarming with thous¬ 
ands of its kind, and prolific with 
strange and terrible monsters now 
extinct. 
We dip our finger into stagnant 
water and, on removing it, find in 
the little still adhering thousands of 
animalcules in the full enjoyance of 
an active life. And in all the grada¬ 
tions of insect life, including oV'^r 
one hundred thousand species, we 
find a facinating and inexhaiistahle 
field of research. 
NVe turn ciir thoughts to a higher 
grade of animal life,and,gazing upon 
the mighty elephant, the lordly lion, 
the ferocious tiger, the stately elk; 
then the agile monkey, the timid 
hare or the cringing mouse, and in 
each we see the wise provisions of 
an amnipotent Creator. 
