sometimes 120 yards thick; it is of a dark brown or blackish colour, containing pyrites, and sometimes carbonat of lime. The warm springs of Buxton, Matlock, &c. all originate from this stratum. A thin bed of clay separates the preceding from the first stratum of limestone. The limestone is of very various thickness, sometimes exceeding 200 fathoms; it lies in large beds, divided from each other by seams of marl. It is full of marine remains, and in many parts forms very beautiful marbles: like all other secondary limestone it incloses chert, in thin seams, and detached nodules. It is this stratum that contains the chief riches and curiosities of Derbyshire, and all the caverns are formed in it. The metallic veins of galena,blende, calamine, and manganese, and the spars, fluors, barytes, &c. are situated in the limestone. Below this is a mass of very various thickness of a substance called toadstone, in Derbyshire. It resembles some of the Scottish whins, and is a variety of mandelstein, containing nodules of calcareous spar, zeolite, and calcedony. It exhibits no marks of stratification, contains no organic remains, and totally cuts off all the veins of lead and other metals. In many places it runs to an unknown depth, but where it has been wrought through, the miners come to a second stratum of limestone, exactly similar to the first, and beyond which no mines have yet been sunk. Besides giving us much interesting information respecting the strata of Derbyshire, Mr. M. describes the celebrated fluor mine, from which almost the whole of this beautiful material is procured, together with the manner of working it into vases, &c. He also mentions the long subterranean galleries for draining the mines, and rectifies an error of Faujas St. Fond, who has men tioned a vein of lead running through toadstone, but which Mr. Mawe found on examination to be only pyritaceous limestone. The account of Derbyshire concludes with a descriptive catalogue of the curious and rare specimens with which this county enriches the cabinet of the mineralogist, and with a short notice of the celebrated Ecton copper mine. Here the work ought to have terminated, and would then have commanded our unqualified approbation, but forty or fifty pages more are devoted to brief, and hasty, and occasionally inaccurate notices of some of the mines in the north of England, in Scotland, and north Wales. The whole concludes with a very contemptuous analysis of Wil liams's Mineral Kingdom, which, notwithstanding its errors and imperfections, is a book of eminent merit. CHAPTER XXII. NATURAL HISTORY. THE works of nature must, in all ages, have engaged the attention of man. kind. They not only lie open to daily observation; but are in many respects inseparably connected with the common occurrences and essential interests of human life. The earliest inhabitants of the world would naturally include, under a common name, those individuals, which most nearly resemble each other: they would unavoidably perceive the difference between the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea; and could therefore, in their familiar discourse, make some general distribution of the objects around them, long before they formed an idea of reducing them to a regular system. The first approach towards a scientific arrangement is to be found in the writings of Moses; and as far as it goes, it is wonderfully sagacious and accurate. The connection between chewing the cud and dividing the hoof, and between the union of these two striking circumstances, and the fitness of the animal for human food; the slight deviation of the camel, and the more important one of the hog from this particular structure, all occurred to this acute observer. A similar distinction is laid down by him, between clean and unclean, i. e. wholesome and unwholesome birds, though the external characters on which it is foun led are not so clearly marked. At a later period, Solomon spale of trees from the cedar that is in Lebanon, to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts and of fowl, and of creeping things and of fishes; but none of his knowledge on these subjects has been transmitted to modern times. Aristotle and Ælian, among the Greeks, have left descriptions of animals. Theophrastus treated of plants and stones. The great work of the elder Pliny is a repository of the knowledge and of the errors of the Romans on the subject of natural history, in the zenith of their riches and power. During the long period of darkness, which soon succeeded, little is to be expected, and nothing worth attention is to be found. At the revival of literature, the awakening mind, unaccustomed to sagacious observation, depended entirely on the stores collected in better and distant times. These were locked up in languages no longer spoken, and but imperfectly understood. To gain a thorough acquaintance with them was a work of no small difficulty and labour: and as the human mind naturally forms a partiality for objects on which it has been long and diligently employed, the writings of the ancients, as they are called, soon obtained a supposititious regard, and were esteemed the sole fountains of wisdom. By an unfortunate mistake in the application of a metaphorical term, the idea was confirmed and continued to a later period. To the men who have lived to the time of old age, and to those who lived a long while ago, the same kind of experience was attributed, and no one ventured to call in question the wisdom of antiquity. In the more elegant productions of the human mind, in the narrative of great events, in delineations of passion, and in lively pictures addressed to the imagination, it will readily be allowed, that the best writers of Greece and of Rome have scarcely been exceeded, and in some respects are still unequalled. But in the knowledge of nature, the ancients were mere children. Their relations abound with fabulous and absurd particulars, their descriptions are, in many cases, too vague and inartificial to enable the modern reader to identify the species. The wisdom of experience is to be found only with the modern, and it is still far from being able to speak with the oracular precision of the hoary head. It is, however, in a state of rapid progress, is daily acquiring fresh vigour, and is advancing fast towards the state of manhood. In our own country, Pennant in zoology, and Hudson in botany, and far before them in point of genius, as well as of time, the immortal Ray in both, have contributed much to the diffusion of natural knowledge. But the attention of modern enquirers into nature, has been chiefly divided between two foreign names, which rose to eminence about the middle of the last century. Buffon, endowed with an ardent mind and a vigorous imagination, master of a glow. ing and captivating eloquence, and enjoying the advantage of royal patro nage, as well as of an ample private fortune, but unhappily deeply tinctured with the atheistical principles which then began to be the fashionable doctrines of his countrymen, has been the favourite author of the young and lively, and of all who wish to blend amusement with instruction. Linnæus, sagacious, methodical, and persevering; not void of fancy; but preferring conciseness of expression, to the graces of amplified composition; animated with a sincere piety, and accustomed to discern and to admire the wisdom of the Creator, in all his works; but born in a country not blest with a genial sky, nor enriched by extensive commerce; and through great part of his life impeded by the pressure of domestic cares, rose slowly into public favour; but gradually gained a decided preference among the cool adherents to rigid exactness and patient investigation. These two great men, so different in the original turn of their ge nius, and the general train of their sentiments, unfortunately conceived an early prejudice against each other, which grew at length into a settled enmity. Linnæus treated his adversary with a silent contempt. Buffon exhausted the powers of his eloquence in turning to ridicule the dry descriptions, and what he thought the whimsical specific distinctions of the whole tribe of nomenclators: for such was the character under which he delighted to represent the learned Swede and his followers. Death is the natural extinguisher of personal quarrels. These eminent antagonists are now no more; and the disciples of each begin to be sensible of each other's merits, as well as of their own deficiencies. The advocates for Linnæus, while they retain their fondness for strict characteristic arrangement, do not neglect to allure their readers by the charms of polished composition: the admirers of Buffon have tacitly relinquished that disdain of method, which has rendered the works of their master, notwithstanding their superlative beauties, a heap of splendid confusion; and have either adopted the Linnæan system, or have constructed others, different in form, but founded on similar general principles. Such is the state of natural science at the time when our labours commence. Numbers of active enquirers are employed, both at home and abroad, in advancing its progress: the designer, engraver, and painter, lend their aid, and give a splendour to their publications suited to the luxury of the times: the public taste coincides with their wishes, and receives their works with avidity. The writings of our own countrymen, to which our attention will, at present, be entirely directed, have in the last year been happily employed, as well to favour the wider diffusion of the knowledge already acquired, as to make additions to the actual stock. Mr. Stuart of Edinburgh and Dr. Turton of Swansea have rendered the study of nature easy to those readers who are acquainted only with their native language. Mr. Kerr has performed the same good service to the continuation of Buffon, by the Count de la Cepede. Two anonymous authors have jointly given an account of the mammalia in a popular form, professedly for the use of young persons. Mr. Bingley has done the same on a larger scale, with respect to the whole animal kingdom. Mr. Montague has thrown the British birds into an alphabetical order, for the accommodation of the young student in turning to such articles as he knows only by name. Dr. Shaw has added to the former part of his capital work, the history of oviparous quadrupeds and serpents, in which, as in the former volumes, will be found much original matter. Mr. Marsham has favoured the world with an arrange. ment and description of the indigenous coleoptera: Mr. Kirby, with a masterly monograph on the English bees. To Mr. Stackhouse and Mr. Turner we are indebted for a complete enumeration and description of the British fuci as far as they have hitherto been discovered. Of these and some other publications, connected with the present department of our work, we shall now proceed to give an account, as nearly as may be, in a regular order. ZOOLOGY. ART. I. Elements of Natural History; being an Introduction to the Systema Naturz of Linnaus. Nn 2 Vols. 8vo. THE English student has had abundant means of access to the botanical system of Linnæus, by the elementary treatises of Lee, Rose, and Hull, which are partly a version, and partly an illustration of the Philosophia Botanica. By the letters of Rousseau in the translation, and large supplementary additions of Professor Martyn; by the successive improved editions of Dr.Withering's Botanical Arrangement; and by the Litchfield translation of the Genera and Species Plantarum: but, with the exception of Dr. Berkenhout's imperfect Synopsis, there has been no assistance of a similar kind on the animal and mineral kingdoms. The author of the present work, who, if we mistake not, is Mr. Stuart, a very ingenious naturalist, at Edinburgh, has undertaken to supply this deficiency, and has executed the task with great ability. His first design was to go through the whole systema natura: he has accordingly entitled his work Elements of Natural History; but on considering how much is already extant in our language, on the vegetable, and how little Linnæus himself has done in the mineral kingdom, compared with the numerous discove ries, and the better arrangement of the present day, he has been induced to close the work, and to apologise to his readers for having led them to expect more than the elements of the natural history of the animal kingdom. As he intended only an introductory work, something like the handbuchs or manuals which are published in Germany, on almost every science, he has inserted only the genera, with a few principal species, always giving the preference to such as are natives of Great Britain. The generic and specific characters he has mostly translated from Gmelin's enlarged edition of Linnæus, with additional observations collected by himself, which are some of the most instructive, as well as entertaining parts of the work. His introductions to the general animal kingdom, and to its several classes, are peculiarly excellent. He has availed himself of the ideas, and especially of the definitions of the systema naturæ, but without binding himself down to a servile translation of its language, or to the order in which the materials are arranged. He has also drawn large supplies, not only from the other writings of Linnæus, but also from various authors; and, as appears to us, not inconsiderably from his own researches and reflections. For the pleasing account of the difference in the flight of different kinds of birds, he is indebted to the admirable author of the natural history of Selbourne. The whole is written in an easy elegant style, and though professedly a compilation, has much of the air of an original. For the further assistance of the learner he has given, at the close of each volume, alphabetical explanations of the terms employed in the six classes, distri buted into as many distinct dictionaries, with the addition of engravings sufficiently exact for the purpose of illus tration, though they cannot boast of any high degree of elegance. To complete the whole, copious lists of writers in various languages, are annexed to each of the separate divisions. We have only to lament, that he has omitted the synoptic tables of genera at the head of the classes, the want of which must be felt by the investigating student. As the work is avowedly Linnæan, he has adhered to the original order of the systema naturæ, and has not followed Gmelin, his general guide, in abo lishing the order of amphibia nantes, an alteration almost universally adopted by recent naturalists. It is certain that the animals under this order do not strictly correspond with the name given to the class, and that they are more nearly allied to the fishes than to the proper amphibia: but we do not see the propriety of changing their situation in the general series, and of placing them last instead of first, among the constant inhabitants of the waters. They surely form a better connecting link between the true amphibia and the spinous fishes, than between the spinous fishes and the insects. From a work of this nature it is not easy to select such an extract as would give a sufficient idea of its general execution: but we cannot conclude without expressing our warmest approbation of the whole, strongly recommending it to all who are desirous of becoming acquainted with a branch of knowledge equally rich in entertainment and instruction. ART. II. A general System of Nature, translated from Gmelin's last Edition of the celebrated Systema Natura. By WILLIAM TURTON, M. D. (Author of the Medical Glossary). 4 Volumes. 8vo. ON perusing the first volume of Mr. Stuart's Elements, which was separately published before the beginning of the last year, we could not avoid feeling a wish, that he had been induced to extend his views, and to undertake a complete translation of the systema naturæ, with such corrections and enlargements as his own ample stock of personal knowledge would enable him to make. The English reader has since been gratified by the present translation; for though only the zoological part has as yet ap peared, the learned author's design embraces the whole of the systema. As the work is professedly a translation, its general merit must be estimated by its fidelity and neatness. The generic and specific characters are necessarily brief, and chiefly composed of technical terms. The only parts where the translator could shew his skill in conveying the manner as well as the meaning of his author, are the introductory views prefixed to the whole work, and the several successive classes. But this is a task |