PREFACE.
Says Cicero: “There is nothing so charming as the knowledge of that branch of literature which enables us to discover the immensity of nature, the heavens, the earth, and the seas; this is the branch which has taught us religion, moderation, and magnanimity, and has rescued the soul from obscurity to make us see all things above, below, and between both.”
Such literature as this is now markedly in the ascendant. Natural science seems to be pre-eminently the coming pursuit of the coming man, and natural science has been wonderfully popularized in books suited to those who without expecting to be specialists desire to be well informed and to look understandingly at the world which lies about them.
Several decades have gone by since Michelet, with his marvellous books, “The Bird” and “The Insect,” and Hugh Miller, chaste, graphic, and enthusiastic in his “Old Red Sandstone,” “The Cruise of the Betsy,” and “The Testimony of the Rocks,” opened glorious new worlds before a rising generation. That generation is now doing good work under the inspiration of the impetus then received. Our library shelves are to-day affluent in books that are handmaids of natural science. Tait and Balfour Stewart in their“Unseen Universe” have brought marvels of world-building within range of our narrower ken. Argyle in his “Unity of Nature” and “Reign of Law” and “Primeval Man,” interpreted mighty and far-reaching harmonies. Principal Sir William Dawson, in his “Story of the Earth and Man,” brings the successive geologic ages before us with the vividness of some master-painter. Darwin and Huxley, detailing experiments, have not scorned to come within the reach of the unlearned mind. In botany, the pleasing, enthusiastic, if often erroneous generalizations, of Grant Allen have their use and place beside the stronger works of Cooke, Gray, Jaegar, Taylor, and others. Our Gray, taking a leading rank among systematic botanists, did not disdain to write for children “How Plants Grow.” No man has done more toward popularizing natural science than Rev. J. G. Wood in his numerous works. Kingsley, with his exquisite English, has given us “Town Geology,” and Tyndale has told us of “Forms of Water.” Buckland and Gosse have written what young and old have rejoiced to read. The elders have sat down with the juniors to revel in Arabella Buckley’s “Fairy-Land of Science” and “Life and Her Children,” while Camille Flammarion has made doubly eloquent to us the midnight skies. It seems almost invidious to name a few out of the many authors who have written not merely technical books for study, but popular works on natural science, to be read on sea-shore and road-side, on a bench in the garden, or lying under orchard trees, or sitting in the woods with a brook purling at our feet. McCook has made many insects our daily friends and teachers. Thompson,Mrs. Treat, and Olive T. Miller have made the birds not only the guests of our maples, but of our hearts.
The parent and teacher need no longer complain that they cannot find the information clearly given needed for replies to multitudinous hourly “whys” and “hows”: the present age is prodigal to its children.
The Nature Readers have been written to direct the minds of our youth in their first studies to the pleasant ways of Natural Science. Their main object has been to cultivate the faculty of observation, awaken enthusiasm, and direct taste in noble lines.
The present volume is designed to open the way for severer studies in geology, astronomy, and biology.
THE AUTHOR.