The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1825-12-09 00:00:00

This day is published,
HINTS to the PUBLIC and the LEGISLATURE,
on the NATURE and EFFECTS of EVANGELICAL
PR EAC If !NO. By a BARRISTER.
" het me take this opportunity of commending, as I ought to do
Met sincerely and most ardently, a work, to which the well-wishers
to genuine Christianity and our Ecclesiastical Establishment are
Indebted. The writer's statement of facts, his arguments front rea-
son and scripture, and his animated descriptions of characters, do
honour to the elegance of his taste, the vigour of his understanding,
andffie soundness of bin moral and religious principles. They will
prdkrve, I trust, many well-meaning and attentive readers from
the sorceries which might be practised upon their credulity and
their piety."—(Hr. Part's Character of Charles James Fox, vol. 2,
p. 8174
Printed fur Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, Paternoster-row ; and
Hunter, St. Paul's Church-yard.

This day is published, by Geo. B. Whittaker, Ave Maria-lane,
London, in dewy Teruo, price 21.105. • or, with proof impres-
shoos of plates on India paper, price 31. I Os., Part I. of
RESEARCHES in FOSSIL OSTEOLOGY, in which
the Characters of many Animals are established whose
Species have been Destroyed by the Revolutions of the Globe.
By the Baron CITY lER, dce. &c. &e.
Translated byEDWARD GRIFFITH, F LS.
new Flaws. from Driving.
7"L=Lettnirlt;7lllrel
It may, perhaps, be affirmed safely that there is no modern sci.
entitle publication which has raised the present reputation and esta.
blished the future fame of its author no completely u the celebrated
Work on Fossil Osteology of the Baron Curler. It certainly yields
In utility, importance, and skill of execution, to none that the pre_sent age has pro:Weed on any scientific subject ; and ranks, beyond
all comparison, the first on that of which it treats. Fossil Osteology
indeed, as a science, came into existence with the publication of this
book ; for though many valuable abstract accounts of fossil organic
remains had proceeded from the pen of previous naturalists, yet it
must be confessed that their researches were but partial; that they
arrived at no general conclusions, no rational system ; and that
they were deficient in that order, clearness, and comprehensiveness
of detail, so essentially necessary to every scientific result, and so
eminently characteristic of all the labours of Cosier.
It may perhaps be said that a translation of this Work is need-
less, that it is fitted exclusively for the man of science and the
eche:ler, to whom an English version is by no means necessary.
But the considerations which hare induced a contrary belief are
principally these—that all the sciences in their infancy are necessa- '
rily confined to men of study and research ; many of them, as they
advance, assume a more popular character, and among these will in
ill probability be included the study of fossil osteology : it requires
no abstruse calculations, and but l:ttle preparatory knowledge; it
is abstracted and simple in its nature. and is confined to facts and
observations. There seems, therefore, to be no bar against its
general introduction as a popular anti pleasing pursuit, calculated
to enlarge and correct the notions of every one on the put as well
as the present works and wonders of creation.
An intimate knowledge of the Work in question will necessarily
be co-extensive with the progress of the science to which it is dedi.
sited. The importance of this science, and its growing estimation
among as, are sufficiently evinced by the increasing demand for
this Work in the original French. To meet such a demand, a re-
publication in this country has been thought necessary ; and even
if an English version were not essential, it has been deemed not
merely a partial but a general advantage to present the book to the
English public, clothed in an English dress.
In a IVork of so much origlcality and importance, it would he
injurious to its illustrious author to make any additions to his text ;
but as the Baron has kindly offered to communicate such new facts
and drawings as may or* r to him, Deriding the progress of this
publication, these will be Inserted, boih in the text and among the
plates, simply as his own additions. The translation of the justly
celebrated Preliminary Discourse, or Theory of the Earth, is from
a new edition, with various alterations and additions, recently pub.
Belied in Paris., and politely communicated, while yet In the press,
by the Baron himself.
To those at all acquainted with the subject, it would be snper-
duous to insist on its importance. The names of Bucklsnd,
Greenough, Jameson, and many others, sufficiently attest the eon.
sideration it has lately received among men of science in our own
country. To others, however, in general, who may not yet have
turned their attention to the subject, we would here simply ob-
serve, that it is intimately connected with some of the most inte-
resting and useful science, and, among them, more especially with
Geology and the History of the Earth, with Zoology and Comps.
relive Anatomy.

Geology, when studied through the medium of fossil organic re-
mains, assumes altogether a new appearance; Inattention to these
remains has misled all who have hitherto proposed the several ex.
isting theories of the earth. It is only by researches into these
fossils that any thing concerning the antiquity of the earth can be
proved. From the various and distinct genera of animal fossils, to
which alone the present work is confined, found in strata of different
kinds and at different depths, we obtain the means of calculating,
at least to a certain extent, the duration of the globe, and of learn-
ing the various revolutions its surface has undergone, which have
at different and distant periods simultaneously overwhelmed the
whole of animated nature. On one point, and that of the highest
consequence, a positive Torok has been obtained—we allude to the
comparative recenmeas of the earth's surface in its present atate, and
the certainty of the last grand catastrophe by which it was over.
whelmed. The Baron clearly proves that on this point Nature and
history speak the same language, and that both corroborate by the
strongest proofs the authority of the sacred volume.

Zoology and Comparative Anatomy are alike illustrated and
greatly enlarged by the Work in question and the science it teaches.
Those laws which are founded on the mutual relation and depend-
ence of parts in every organized body, and which are opposed to all
fallacious stories of monstrous animals handed down to us by cre-
dulous antiquity, receive additional confirmation from the discovery
of the fossil remains of extimespecies. We find from them that
at the remotest periods of ti nature has been always governed by
the same general laws, nor could, indeed, ever have produced beings
with a discordance of parts which must have speedily occasioned
their annihilation.

Results like these must amply repay every inquisitive mind far
any reasonable and necessary degree of trouble that may attend the
investigation of the several facts to which they are established
and if the reader of Curler's Work do not find an equal degree of
interest in every page, or If he tire with minuteness of detail and
particulars of daaiptioo, let him remember that it is by such mi-
nuteness and particularity, in a great measure, that these results
are obtained.

The Work will be published Quarterly, in Ten Parts, each to
contain about thirty sheets of letter-press and about thirty plates.
It will be printed in quarto, to correspond with the quarto edition
of tho Animal Kingdom of Cinder, now publishing.