PREFACE. As the boundaries of Science extend, the Discoveries and Curiosities it develops extend also; and as these boundaries have of late years been extended in every direction, it is become impossible for the great body of mankind, or indeed for any one who does not professionally surrender the whole of his life to literary pursuits, to follow up and store in his memory the multiplied facts or discoveries of an amusing, interesting, or extraordinary nature, which have hence been laid open, and are daily growing before us. A correct and comprehensive Repository, therefore, of whatever is chiefly valuable, and has chiefly a claim upon the public attention, of whatever is intrinsically curious, wonderful, or in any other way impressive, derived from the vast theatres of NATURE and ART, as they are at present unfolded to us; if selected with a judicious and discriminating hand, from the immense mass of matter at this moment before the world, in the various physical and philosophical Transactions, Journals, and Memoirs, the Ephemerides, Amanitates, and Miscellanea Curiosa, of our own and other countries, cannot fail of becoming an object of public attention and patronage; as peculiarly adapted to the public want, and as combining a rich variety of elegant amusement, with the most valuable specimens of scientific pursuit. With this feeling the Proprietors of the present work commenced it nearly two years ago, and fully offered their views upon the subject, in a brief Prospectus accompanying the First Part. And now, that the work is completed, they can conscientiously appeal to the public at large, whether they have not in every respect fulfilled the promise then made, and produced a Miscellany at once elegant and systematic, scien→ tific and entertaining; replete with nearly the whole wealth of NATURE and ART, and therefore fully entitled to be denominated their general Museum or GALLERY. They trust, that they may equally point to the termination, and to the opening of the present work, in proof that its direct scope is to furnish a Literary Conservatory of Rare, Curious, and Interesting Productions, derived from all quarters, and from all ages of the world; from every branch of science so far as it can be rendered popular, and from every department of research and discovery; from the most approved works of Travels and Antiquities; of Topography and general Geography; of Fossils and Mineralogy; of Natural History and Physiology; of Chemistry and Mechanics. The sanction of mankind, indeed, has already been given to a variety of valuable productions formed upon a basis somewhat similar; several of which, however, have been so long composed, as to become equally antiquated and erroneous in the progressive path of Science; while others, deficient in knowledge or judgment, have been too generally drawn, with little or no discrimination, from wonders and curiosities that have never existed, and exhibit rather a world of fiction than of fact; or have lost all claim to authority, from a vain adoption of the editor's language and opinions instead of the language and opinions of the established sources, from which he should have quoted. Next, therefore, to the extensive research which the present volumes will be found to offer; a research far exceeding what has ever been attempted before; and the systematic, yet easy and familiar method in which they are arranged; it is their |