The beauty of the typography, and of other matters which constitute the mechanical perfection of a book, will, it is believed, require no especial notice or eulogium ; and the number, selection, and excellence of the engravings, (mostly designed and executed by the first artists of the country,) are probably unequalled by those of any volume of a similar character ever published in America.

No pains or expense have been spared to make the work altogether of the patronage of an American community.

Events occurring before the Deluge can hardly be said to have a place in records of national existence.

They pertain rather to natural philosophy than to a history of human transactions.

The terrible convulsions occurring in remote ages, and the strange and monstrous forms of life Which then had their being, seem to indicate that the a certain time, was only adapted to the grosser and less uces, of whose traces geology furnishes the evidence.