sculpture, and architecture in his own country. At different periods of his life he visited neighboring states, and, wherever he went, he seems to have looked around him with the eye of a connoisseur, and to have sought, through every channel, precise and accurate information with regard to the progress of foreign nations in those arts which have been to him the subjects of a life's study. Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, and England, have each contributed their quota to enrich these volumes, and the remarks of the judicious traveller and critic will no doubt be duly appreciated in these countries by all who take an interest in the progress of the arts. To America, even, though it presented too little that is excellent in this respect to justify the trouble and risk of a personal visit, a place is allotted in Count Raczynski's gallery. To give that portion of the work which treats of foreign art the examination which it deserves, would require more time and space than we can now afford. We may again recur to the subject, which is too important to be either treated carelessly or passed over in silence. - ART. VIII. A Discourse delivered upon the Opening of the New Hall of the New York Lyceum of Natural History. By JOHN W. FRANCIS, M. D. New York: 1841. H. Ludwig. WE are highly pleased to see that the learned author of the discourse, the title of which is here given, has at last been induced, by some friends of natural science, to favor the public with this valuable contribution from the rich storehouse of his mind. Some five years since, it was listened to, as we well remember, with great delight by a crowded and most enlightened audience, and its immediate publication loudly called for. The call, however, was then unheeded, but whether from the doctor's natural shyness of the public eye, or from the pressing demand upon his time, by the absorbing and exacting duties of his profession, it does not belong to us to inquire; it is enough that we now see it in print, and in the beautiful dress in which it has made its appearance. In connexion with it, we cannot neglect the 1842.] Francis's Discourse on Natural History. 475 opportunity of paying a passing tribute to the institution to which it was particularly addressed. The New York Lyceum of Natural History has long been known as one of the most active among the scientific associations of our country, and may justly make especial claims to the favorable notice of the friends and promoters of this branch of knowledge in all lands. Placed in the great commercial capital of the western continent, it possesses superior advantages for forming collections from every region, and, being provided with a safe, convenient, and spacious hall, it has all the necessary facilities for arranging and preserving them; it extends its inquiries to the whole kingdom of nature; its members have shown great talent and zeal in exploring it, and their publications prove them to be naturalists in knowledge as well as in name. These are some of its claims to the respectful consideration of the scientific world. Independent of the intellectual pleasures and advantages of the study of nature, we should expect to find it a favorite object of pursuit in our country for the more material benefits to be drawn from a knowledge of it, as there is scarcely a product of human industry of whose value it does not form an essential element. In such a city as this, a school for teaching the natural sciences is as necessary as workshops for practical instruction in the mechanic arts; but there are none, and no opportunities whatever for acquiring this essentially useful knowledge; no lectures upon it, and no collections in the colleges; almost all that is done for its advancement is done by the institution of which we have been speaking. In no respect is the contrast between European cities and our own, as to the means of public instruction, so great and so striking as in this. But to return to our more immediate subject. Dr. Francis's discourse, although compressed within the form and compass of a pamphlet, is, in fact, a volume, and one comprehensive enough to furnish materials for the most elaborate comment; but our notice of it must necessarily be brief, and directed to a few only of the leading topics upon which he touches. The introduction to this discourse is uncommonly happy and appropriate; it could not fail to impress the student of nature with an enlarged and elevated idea of the pursuit in which he is engaged; and, when we see what a wide range of thought and reflection here presented itself to the author's mind, we do not wonder that he found it difficult to confine himself to a narrower and more definite subject, as the language of the following passage shows to have been the case "To select a theme becoming the present interesting occasion has not been without its difficulties. Nothing, perhaps, would be so appropriate as an exposition of the present state of natural science abroad, embracing a cursory view of the early condition of physical knowledge by its primary cultivators, and an examination. of the present respective merits of the nations of Great Britain and the European continent. To present but a concise summary of this character, calls for richer materials than I possess; and justly executed, would trespass on time which we have not at command. The inevitable consequence of a mere outline of such a survey, however, if impartially and judiciously drawn, could not fail to strengthen our admiration of the dignity and importance of natural knowledge as connected with the interests of human society, and raise our estimate of the talents which have been appropriated to its elucidation. It would liberalize our feelings, warm our charities, and counteract the prejudices which unfortunately too often beset even the most enlightened cosmopolite philosopher. "In instituting a comparison of the respective theories of the earth, we would be bound to reduce the speculations of geologists to the actual condition of the globe: and whether we enlisted as disciples of Neptune or of Vulcan, of the Wernerian or of the Huttonian school, while scrutinizing the services of the ingenious writers who have appeared on the subject, with all the lights of modern science, we should be brought to the conclusion of the extraordinary conformity of facts, the most recent and abundant, to the cosmogony of the great Jewish lawgiver. In descanting on another almost boundless topic, zoology, we should be struck with the wonderful sagacity and matchless acumen of Aristotle, the first classifier of this department of physical study. We should be taught the great excellence to which, as a branch of knowledge, it has attained in our own day; and in the exposition of zoological systems, we should be compelled to notice the progress of discovery and the consequent modifications of systematic reasoning. A discussion, not without practical instruction, would here very properly offer itself. "The arrangement of the several branches of this division of natural history has vexed minds the strongest for accurate discrimination, and, by consequence, the cogitative powers have been subjected to a logic as astute as any the schoolmen may have formed. The Linnæan division, mammalia, among the primates, it is familiarly known, associates man with the monkey and the bat—a classification not over flattering to the lord of creation. The fancied chain of being on which poets and philosophers have written so ingeniously, which has occasioned the association of minerals with 1842.] Francis's Discourse on Natural History. 477 vegetables, vegetables with animals, and again animals with the Creator, has been the efficient cause of the nomenclature to which I now allude. But the metaphysics of Bonnet are not to be allowed to supply the chasms originating from our incapacities: neither an artificial nor a natural arrangement of the characteristic organs of animals ought to tolerate such freedom: and improved physiology discards it, and the inherent dignity of man, as a moral and accountable being, renders demonstrative the difference between the operations of human reason and the impulses of the instinctive faculty of brutes. A later and more successful division of zoology, by the immortal Cuvier, rests on the nervous and sensorial, and not on the circulatory and respiratory systems: and in order 1, Bimana, we find the species man placed at the head of the living creation, and no longer primus inter pares. Nor would our labors here end: though we be disqualified from speaking with oracular precisionmineralogy would demand of us that homage be rendered to Theophrastus, and the elder Pliny, among the ancients, while the vast accessions to this science by the enterprise and sagacity of the moderns have given it the certainty of experimental knowledge, and placed this branch of investigation for its importance to the elegant arts and useful resources of man as second to none in the volume of nature. In a comparative estimate of the contributions of eminent men in this extensive field of productive effort, imaginative Germany, philosophic France, and harmonious Italy would prefer the claims of their respective sons, in accents too loud and too continuous to be resisted."—pp. 15–18. The peculiar position of the American continent, its great extent, its grand features, its vast untraversed regions, and its variety of climate, give an importance to the study of our natural history which the author has not failed forcibly and advantageously to set forth. But as his discourse is particularly rich in interesting facts, we think we shall be doing a greater service to our readers by confining our attention more particularly to that portion of it which is filled with them. In treating of the genuine and specific differences observed to exist in corresponding objects of nature of the eastern and western continents, the doctor presents us with so much that is new and curious, that we are tempted to transfer to our pages a larger extract than we are accustomed to introduce "Admitting, to its fullest extent, the interchanges of place which occur among animals by reason of their migratory movements, whether accidental and irregular, or stated and periodical, and the complexity into which inquiries on this head are thus unfortunately involved, we, nevertheless, find to our entire satisfaction, that every country is characterized by various peculiar tribes, and many of them, although the farthest removed from what we consider as the central station in which all living creatures were originally placed, are naturally the worst prepared with the means of locomotion. Thus we find that the tiger, with his herculean strength, confines himself to the most beautiful of the Asiatic islands; the panther crouches among the branches of the African forests; the jaguar, of the new world, prowls along the wooded shores of the Orinoco; the moose deer roams amidst the primeval forests of the North American continent, and the gigantic cetacea gambol beneath the ices of the poles. "The fur-bearing animals are principally confined to the regions of perpetual snow in Arctic America; and while it is ascertained that some are common to both continents, many, it is equally well known, are peculiar to North America. The musk ox is deemed to be an arctic quadruped, yet is it unknown both in Asia and Europe, while two races of deer and the prong-horned antelope are recognised only in America. The Fauna Boreali Americana of Dr. Richardson, contains many illustrations of a similar sort. The zoological aspect of the northern parts of British North America, according to this intrepid and enlightened traveller, the companion of Captain Franklin in his late expedition toward the North Pole, is more allied to that of Norway and Lapland and some of the corresponding parallels of Asia, than to the southern parts of the new world. The equatorial regions of Asia, Africa, and America, possess no quadruped which is common to more than two of those regions, and it might be said that none of the three possess a single mammiferous animal in common. “Melville Island, and the rest of the North Georgian group, may be affirmed as the most northern region to which our knowledge extends. In the more northern parts we have the polar bear, whose southern limits seem to be found at fifty-five degrees: as we retire from the north to the more southern latitude, we lose the musk ox and the icy hare. The distinguished explorer of Arctic Zoology has also thrown a large amount of information on the zoology of the temperate parts of North America. The bison may be found far south, probably at the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude. Its characteristic positions are the great prairies to the west of the Mississippi, where it may be seen in droves of countless numbers. Lewis and Clarke mention several species of the cerous, canes, and ursus, as inhabiting the plains on the banks of the Columbia river. The Rocky Mountain sheep and goat are, upon good authority, conjectured to be peculiar, and to differ essentially from the argall of the north of Asia. We have still further illustrative proofs of the effects which local peculiarities produce on the zoological character of a country. According to Dr. Richardson, the moose deer |