172 BIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT OF 
E 
jarmassing yet, as I came up the river in the dark, and our only walk is 
a path of about a mile along the bank among the houses; the whole 
country is a vast marsh, utterly impassable, and I hear we must go up 
the river for twelve hours further before we get any solid ground. 1 
saw however from the sea some hills, among which my colliery will be, 
and within a short distance there are some apparently primitive ones, 
perhaps 2000 feet high; at present I am very busy preparing to ex- 
plore the country, which must be done before we can begin. I shall 
write you again soon; and in the meantime I add a sketch of a fence 
before the house where I am writing: the eross-bars of palm wood have 
been inserted into the living wood, which has grown out over them ; the 
trees have now no flowers, but I think they are a species of Spondias ; 
the fence is many yards long, and every tree is alike —J. M. 
Biographical Account of M. ADRIEN DE Jussieu; by M. J. DECAISNE. 
(Extracted from the Memoirs of the Imperial Agricultural Society of 
France, for the year 1854.) 
(Continued from p. 143.) 
I shall not undertake to specify all the valuable Memoirs which M. 
de Jussieu has composed : an enumeration of title-pages gives no idea 
of a writer's ability ; and it is eminently in works of analysis and de- 
seriptive botany, in the definition of groups, and the application of their 
characters, where the greater portion is effected by the arbitrary will of 
the savant, that we are apt to make mistakes as to the talent of an 
author. The publie sees but the outside of a book; its contents are a 
sealed letter; and one therefore has no standard of its value beyond the 
bulk and number of the volumes which the writer has produced. But 
open the clasp, and thread the labyrinth of details which make up the 
characteristic marks of the genera and species, and you will presently 
feel, as you proceed, whether the book is, or is not, composed by a man 
who possesses that natural gift of observation, combined with powers 
| of combination, which is indispensable for the definition of individual 
species and the establishment of their analogies. Now, it is by these 
traits that M. Adrien de Jussien was eminently characterized. During 
many years, he subjected his analytical labours, with ever-increasing 
. severity, to the laws of unity. The study of the relations of families 
