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Show Co N T E N T s of the V 0 L U M E S. V o L. I. The Hifiory of F o s s I L s. Vo L. II. The Hifiory of P L A N T s. V o L. III. The Hifl:ory of A N I M A L s. Each being 1n itfelf a compleat Hifl:ory of one of the Three great Claffes of Natural Bodies. NORlAND COLLECTION THE p R E F A. c HE former volume of this Work, containing the Hi)Jory of FoJlils, has fallen under the cen.fure of fime people, who have had lefs acquaintance with tbe learned languages, than fiems neciffory to the reading on a~ of the z"mproved Sciences, on account of the many new generical terms contained in it, and formed out of the Greek: others have a!fo objeEled to it, as too much out of the Zffual manner of writing on the fobjefl; too unlike all the other treatifes on the mineral or fojjile kingdom. I could wijh to make a work of this kind of general zije, and to obviate, as much as pojjible, even z"njudidous or unfair objeElions. What I have to plead, in jujtijication of the former volume, is jhort : That all new JY.Jlems mujl have the ajjijlance of new words ; that not only rea)on, but cujlom, time immemorial, has ejlablijhed it as a law, that theje are to be derived from the Greek ; and that no author had written what could be called a Hijlory of Fojjils before. In regard to the fobjeEl of this volume, it is much otberw!fe : Botany has been, in a great meafure, reduced into a .fyflem already by Linnceus ; and generical names are ejlablijhed, in the greater part of it, exprejfive of the necejfary di)JinElions. In the diflributions and charaf!ers of what are called the imperjefl plants, Linnceus, and indeed all who have written on the Jubjef!, appear to me to be greatly defeE!ive : .fo much qf this Work, therefore, as regards thefe, will, I am afraid, be liable to the fame objeflions ·with the former volumes; but in all the refl I have everywhere retained the already ejlablijhed names ; I have kept up to the arrangement of the plants in the Linncean fjflem, the author of which de-firves infinite praife ; and have preferved his clajjical as well as his generz" cal names, his clajjical charaflers, and, fi Jar as nature warra?zts it, have kept up to even his very terms in the generical dijlinBions. I have always, where it has been pojjible, examined the plants themfilves, in the time of their flowering : where they have agreed with his charaf!ers, I have never failed to adopt them ; and, even where they have differed from his defcriptions, I have given the account, in terms as like his own' as might be. [ a J fPbere |