On the alternation of generations; or, the propagation and development of animals through alternate generations: a peculiar form of fostering the young in the lower classes of animals ... / By Joh. Japetus Sm. Steenstrup ... Translated from the German version of C.H. Lorenzen, by George Busk.

  • Steenstrup, J. Japetus Sm. (Johannes Japetus Sm.), 1813-1897.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the alternation of generations; or, the propagation and development of animals through alternate generations: a peculiar form of fostering the young in the lower classes of animals ... / By Joh. Japetus Sm. Steenstrup ... Translated from the German version of C.H. Lorenzen, by George Busk. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    duction to more extended labours in the same direction ;— labours which I had hoped to have seen entered upon by others, whom this essay of mine might probably stimulate to the undertaking. I believe that I have given only the first rough outlines of a province of a great ferra incognita which hes unexplored before us, and the exploration of which promises a return such as we can at present scarcely appreciate. Several points of this continent have been touched at by naturalists, who have there erected their beacons usually without guessing that they were all in the same region; the recognition of these visited points, the discovery of a few new ones, and the tracing out of their connexion with the adjoining coast line, so that the connected figure of the continent might be more authori- tatively laid down, is all that my researches clam. From the beacons erected by my predecessors, I have endea- voured to make a survey of the surrounding country, as far as it was possible for one to do so; I have been able to raise some of them to a greater height, m order to take a more extended view from their summits; and I have wished to render the general impression of the pe- culiar aspect of the continent derived from these isolated views as correctly as my conception of it would allow, being persuaded that by so doing I threw a clearer light, by means of this general picture, on the separate views of the landscape, and perhaps was thus afforded the only correct mode of viewing them. I am well aware that many naturalists would not have ventured upon such general views, such generalizations as they are termed, as I have indulged im, partly m the Danish version of this essay, and partly m an earlier small work in an entirely opposite direction, and for which I have been exposed, on several sides, to objections and blame, on account of the dangerous consequences of such speculations, and the tendency they have to mislead others. I am, however, of opinion, that it would be a gain to science, and is imperative upon every one to take a survey of the field from the eminence on which he has