À 
3 
plants is derived from his generous assistance. In fact, the 
vegetation of the northern and eastern parts of this great 
country would have been almost as much unknown now, as it 
was in 1810, had it not been for Mr. Cunningham. The Aus- 
tralian Composite for example, could not have been usefully 
examined by M. DeCandolle in his laborious revision of that 
most difficult order, if the whole collection of those plants, 
found by my lamented friend, hag not been sent to Geneva. 
Well might he be dissatisfied at the duties of Colonial Dota- 
nist at Sydney, alluded to in the foregoing extract from the 
Athenzum, when he found that, owing to the ruthless par- 
simony of the authorities, he was not only deprived of all 
means of prosecuting his researches into the Botany of the 
Colony, but, instead of being treated as a man of science, 
was placed, by the nature of his duties, upon the footing of a 
turnkey. If the evidence I possess upon this subject were 
made publie, it would excite feelings of astonishment and 
disgust. 
AWARD OF A COPLEY MEDAL TO DR. BROWN. 
At the last anniversary of the Royal Society a Copley 
Medal was presented to Dr. Robert Brown for his original 
and important discoveries in vegetable anatomy and physio- 
logy; and thus has something like justice at last been done 
to the character of one of the most learned naturalists, and 
certainly the most profound botanist of our age. It must be 
no little gratification to the friends of science that this should 
have been one of the early results of a reformation in the 
management of the Royal Society, under the enlightened ad- 
ministration of the Marquess of Northampton. 
'The following is the official declaration of the discoveries 
for which the medal has been awarded: viz. ** The organiza- 
tion of the vegetable ovule, immediately before fecundation 
(published in 1826); and the direct action of the pollen, 
manifested by the contact established between it and that 
point of the ovulum where the embryo subsequently first be- 
comes visible, and published in papers, in the years 1832 and 
1833, and communicated to the Linnean Society." 
