Natural History of New York: By Authority. Albany, Thurlow Weed, Printer to the State. New York, Wiley & Putnam, and D. Appleton & Co.
We are among those who believe that, as characterizing the present age, the cultivation of purely mechanical and natural science has been carried much too far, or rather, has been made too exclusive and absorbing. It is not the highest science—for it concerns only that which is around us—which is altogether outward. Man is always greater than the world of nature in which he lives, and just as clearly must the science of man, the philosophy of his moral and intellectual being, rank far above that of the soulless creation which was made to minister to his wants. When, therefore, this lower science so draws to itself the life of any age, as to disparage and shut out the higher, it works a positive injury to the well-being of that age. Still it is only thus in comparison with a nobler and more lofty study that we would venture to cast the faintest reproach upon that natural science which in no slight degree absorbs the intellectual effort of the present generation. Regarded as related to, and a part of, a complete system of education, it becomes most important and necessary; and its cultivation, even to apparent excess, a cause of rejoicing and a source of the highest hope.
We need scarcely say, then, that we look upon the explorations which have been made “by authority” into the Geology and general Natural History of several of the most important States in the Union, as among the proudest achievements of the present day. Most of them, it is true, grew out of designs not the highest on the part of those by whom they were originated. The development of resources, the discovery of mineral wealth, or other elements of power, formed in most cases the principal aim of those at whose instance these surveys were undertaken. But this is of little importance. The results are, on this account, none the less valuable to the cause of natural science, nor is our joy at their successful prosecution the less ardent or sincere. In all the States in which they have been undertaken, they have been fruitful of the best results; and the facts thus brought together will be found of priceless value to students and inquirers for ages to come.
The State of New York has just completed her survey, which has been conducted on a scale commensurate with her wealth and enterprise. The different departments of the survey were, in 1836, assigned to eight gentlemen well qualified for the task, and from that time until their completion, the explorations were conducted with energy and enthusiasm. The reports are to be published in ten magnificent quarto volumes, of which the first is now before us. A more splendid monument of intelligent enterprise in the cause of science, has seldom been erected by any State. The first volume contains only a portion of the first report on Zoology, by Mr. James E. DeKay, to whom this department was committed. Governor Seward has written an introduction to the work, which occupies nearly two hundred pages. It is valuable as a historical record of the progress of the arts, the sciences, and the various branches of enterprise and industry in the State, though as a literary performance it can claim no especial merit. It is, indeed, little more than a compendium of the history of the State, and of its general statistics, of which the different portions have been contributed by different persons. The portion of the Zoological Report which this volume contains—relating merely to the Mammalia of the State—is highly valuable, and, to the naturalist, exceedingly interesting. Previous to this survey, no complete Zoology of the State had been attempted. In 1813, Samuel L. Mitchell commenced an account of the fishes of New York, which was the first work on the subject ever undertaken; and the impulse given to the science by his labors in fact laid the foundation for whatever has been effected in the same department since. Several other branches of Zoology had received some slight attention before the commencement of the State survey. Bachman, a well known naturalist of South Carolina, had made interesting discoveries in the families of smaller quadrupeds, and much valuable information concerning the ornithology of the State had been collected by Wilson, Audubon, Cooper, Bonaparte and DeKay. Barnes had classified the Unionidæ of the lakes and rivers, and the Mollusca of the sea coast had been well studied by Dr. Gay, of New York city. But the report of Mr. DeKay in this department presents by far a more full and comprehensive account of the Zoology of New York than had ever before been made. The State was divided into four Zoological districts: first, the western district, embracing all the western portion of the State, as far east as the sources of the Mohawk; second, the northern, comprising all that portion of the State lying north of the Mohawk valley; third, the valley of the Hudson, including all the counties watered by that river and its tributaries; and fourth, the Atlantic district, embracing Long Island. In regard to its natural history, the northern district is by far the most important. Strange as it may seem to those who are accustomed to hear only of the wealth, the refinement, and the advanced civilization of the “Empire State,” there is embraced in this northern district a great tract of a thousand square miles, lying in loneliness, fresh as it came from the hand of God, untouched, and almost unvisited by man. It is clad with forests of great and majestic beauty, echoing only the sigh of the tempest, the screams of the untamed dwellers in its wilds, and now and then the rifle of the hunter, who there finds game, such as in long gone times the red men loved to chase. It is thickly overspread with lakes, embosomed in mountains, now lying calmly and smilingly beneath the sun, and the next hour lashed into frowns, when
“The tempest shooteth, from the steep,
The shadow of its coming.”
Travelers who would wander through it, must provide themselves with guides, and trust to hunting and chance for food and lodging. No one lives there—the whole is one vast, solitary wilderness, untouched by man—lying in its own majesty—unconscious even that the foot of the adventurous Genoese has been set upon the continent.
“Still this great solitude is quick with life;
Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers