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W HILE the value and uses of many of the bodies, which arethe fubjeSls of this history, cannot but have been known in al-most all ages of the world ; it seems f range, that theregular fiudy of the whole of them should have been less cultivated in-most than that of many other perhaps less worthy objeSls ; and Usmuch to be lamented, that it should have had so small a share ofthe advantages and improvements that the labours of the learned*world have of late bestowd on all the other branches of knowledge,and in particular on Natural History.

Notwithstanding the many books that have been written on Fossils, itcannot but have too clearly appeared to all who have engagd in the fludyof them, that something was fill greatly wanting toward attaining atrue knowledge of them ; and perhaps no work in Natural Knowledgecould be at present so defrable as a Hifory of Fossils, engaged in withthe necessary off fiance's, and attempted on a rational plan.

“The first step toward a design of this kind , was necessa-rily to examine what had been already publish) d on the subject,and many valuable truths, many excellent hints, and much realknowledge found in the works of Geoff roy, Mercatus, Stem, Boer-haave, Woodward, Morton, Plot , and the great Linnæus among thelater writers ; and of Agricola, Cæfalpinus, and Aldrovand among thoje°f a little earlier date, were to be eternally recorded , and madethe basts of after discoveries.

But tho these valuable truths' are to be feleEied from their works,there requires great care and attention, and the regular fiudy of the bo-dies treated of, to separate them from a much larger store of less judi-cious matter: Since so great has been the disregard paid to this fiudy,that if we take the works of the several Authors on it together, we findthem miserably ignorant of the true nature of the bodies they treat°f■> and usually taking upon trust from one another accounts, which'when tracd up to their original, will often be found to have sprungJ r om error or credulity.

It