The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
2Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by LEA &BLANCHARD, in the Clerk’s Office, of the District Court of theEastern District of Pennsylvania.
Dear Sir John,
I avail myself with pleasure of your permission to dedicatemy book to you, as it gives me an opportunity of expressing myadmiration of your talents, and my sincere estimation of yourfriendship.
London, 29th February, 1848.
The improvements and additions embodied in the new Londonedition are fully enumerated in the Author’s Preface. TheAmerican publishers have supplied what was much needed, acomplete Glossary of Scientific and Technical Terms; which,with some few additions scattered through the pages, and enclosedin brackets [ ], were prepared by Dr. Ruschenberger.
These additions, while they have improved the work, haveadded materially to the number and size of the pages. Thepublishers, consequently, trust that it will be found more effectuallysuited to the wants of the private reader as well as to thoseof the higher classes in schools.
Philadelphia, December, 1849.
Since the publication of the first edition of this work, the Authorhas been able to correct many inaccuracies that had crept intoit, and to collect much new matter from works since published,which is embodied in the present edition, and has considerablyadded to its size. The recently-published Second Volume ofBaron Humboldt’s invaluable “Cosmos,”[1] with Colonel Sabine’slearned notes, and sundry papers that have appeared in thescientific periodicals of Europe, America, and India, bearing onquestions of Physical Geography, have yielded profitable information.
It was the Author’s wish, and her Publisher’s intention, thatthe present edition should be accompanied by a series of Maps toillus