PREFACE.
To place before the youthful student a compact and concise compendium of the leading and most universally important branches of Science has been my principal object in the preparation of this little volume.
To adapt the work to the capacity of all, I have endeavoured to divest the different subjects treated in it of hard and dry technicalities, and to clothe them in the more attractive garb of fairy tales—a task by no means easy.
That I have been obliged, in the composition of the work, to consult a crowd of authorities, need hardly be stated, nor will any more formal enumeration or systematic acknowledgment be expected.
In the fanciful sketches which illustrate these pages, my friend Mr. C. H. Bennett has most fully entered into the spirit in which I conceived the work.
I have to tender my sincere thanks to my
