AURORA BOREALIS
PETER PARLEY'S WONDERS
OF THE
EARTH, SEA, AND SKY.
EDITED BY THE REV. T. WILSON.
A New Edition,
WITH ADDITIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS.
LONDON:
DARTON AND CLARK, HOLBORN HILL.
Entered at Stationers' Hall.
TO
GEORGE BIRKBECK, Esq. M.D., F.G.S.,
PRESIDENT OF THE LONDON MECHANICS' INSTITUTION,
AS A TRIBUTE OF RESPECT
FOR
HIS BENEVOLENT AND EFFECTUAL ENDEAVOURS TO PROMOTE THE
DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE,
This Little Work
IS,
WITH PERMISSION, DEDICATED
BY THE EDITOR.
It seems to me that there is something very unreasonablein the plan of a great many of the books intendedto introduce young people to the various branches ofNatural History, which have been recently published.The chief aim of their authors seems to have been tocombine brevity with comprehensiveness. Brevity is,without doubt, a great advantage, inasmuch as the proverbis true, that a great book is a great evil; but in myopinion comprehensiveness ought not to be attemptedin books intended for children. If it were desirable, Imight indeed confidently say, that it can never be obtainedwithin the necessary limits; and the attempt toeffect it, will very often reduce the work to a mere drytable of classification. However neat and systematictables of genera and species, and lists of names maylook, they can never convey to the young the elementsof sound scientific method; and will seldom fail in« vi »being useless or disgusting to the mind, at an age whenit is seeking for that sort of knowledge which willexercise the understanding, without burdening thememory. This healthy appetite ought to be carefullycultivated; and I am satisfied that if it were so, fromthe earliest stage of education, we should have but fewcomplaints of bad memories. The memory is apt tovanish from those who would make an idol of it; and Iam dispose