Your minute
acquaintance with the North-western Territory must have placed many
materials in your possession, and I trust you may be induced to transfer
some of them to the periodical about to be issued.
"We consider Mr. Eaton's geological notions and nomenclature as very
empirical here, as they are considered in France and England, and his
day has passed by."
The prospectus says: "Amidst these general contributions to science, it
is painful to perceive what conspicuous blanks are yet left for America
to fill up, and especially in those important branches, American geology
and American organic remains. This feeling is greatly increased by the
occasional taunts and sneers we see directed against us in foreign
scientific works. They are aimed, it is true, against individuals
insignificant enough to elude them, and therefore the larger body, the
nation, is hit and wounded by them. Neither is there any defence open to
us. We send abroad gigantic stories of huge antediluvian lizards,
'larger than the largest size,' and we ourselves are kept upon the stare
at our own wonders from Georgia to Maine, until we find out we have been
exulting over the stranded remains of a common spermaceti whale.
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