Select Specimens of Natural History Collected in Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile. Volume 5.Bruce, James
History
Select Specimens of Natural History Collected in Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile. Volume 5.
Bruce, James
Natural history -- Egypt; Natural history -- Ethiopia; Nile River; Plants -- Egypt; Plants -- Ethiopia; Scientific expeditions -- Egypt
_Cerastes, or Horned Viper_, 198
_Binny_, 211
_Caretta, or Sea Tortoise_, 215
_Pearls_, 219
MAPS.
1. _General Map._
2. _Itinerary from_ Gondar _to the Source of the_ Nile.
3. _Chart of_ Solomon’s _Voyage to_ Tarshish.
INTRODUCTION.
As it has been my endeavour, throughout this history, to leave nothing
unexplained that may assist the reader in understanding the different
subjects that have been treated in the course of it, I think myself
obliged to say a few words concerning the manner of arranging this
Appendix. With regard to the Natural History, it must occur to every
one, that, however numerous and respectable they may be who have
dedicated themselves entirely to this study, they bear but a very
small proportion to those who, for amusement or instruction, seek the
miscellaneous and general occurrences of life that ordinarily compose a
series of travels.
By presenting the two subjects promiscuously, I was apprehensive of
incommoding and disgusting both species of readers. Every body that
has read Tournefort, and some other authors of merit of that kind,
must be sensible how unpleasant it is to have a very rapid, well-told,
interesting narrative, concerning the arts, government, or ruins of
Corinth, Athens, or Ephesus, interrupted by the appearance of a nettle
or daffodil, from some particularity which they may possess, curious
and important in the eye of a botanist, but invisible and indifferent
to an ordinary beholder.
To prevent this, I have placed what belongs to Natural History in one
volume or appendix, and in so doing I hope to meet the approbation
of my scientific botanical readers, by laying the different subjects
all together before them, without subjecting them to the trouble of
turning over different books to get at any one of them. The figures,
landscapes, and a few other plates of this kind, are illustrations
of what immediately passes in the page; these descriptions seldom
occupy more than a few lines, and therefore such plates cannot be more
ornamentally or usefully placed than opposite to the page which treats
of them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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