Page:The Botanist's Guide Through the Counties of Northumberland and Durham (Vol 1).djvu/11

 ''important but scattered information respecting the mineralogy of this district which we already possess, may he induced to give the whole that systematical arrangement it chiefly wants; or to the almost unbeaten field of geology may be added whatever of peculiarity may occur in the zoology of these counties: But it is not here our object to detain your attention by enumerating every branch of a complete statistical history; these hints; thrown out solely in looking beyond our own pretensions for the sanction we solicit, naturally lead us to remark, that when that great national object is to be accomplished, the full and exact information in which its real utility must consist, can only be acquired by the separate investigation of every subject belonging to those districts into which it may be found expedient to divide the country; this seems not to have been the course adopted in that great work in which the northern division of this island has so long preceded us; to it every praise is due, both to the patriotic views and to the liberal and spirited exertions of its respectable editor, whom we are proud to claim as a member and correspondent, and to the sound good sense and extensive knowledge displayed by the gentlemen who furnished the parochial histories. Yet whilst we judge it illiberal to dwell for a moment '' Rh