166 s COMMENTARY ON THE PLANTS IN 
have been lost. The remainder of what Maregrav left behind, which 
was mostly written with symbolical characters invented by himself, to- 
gether with Piso's writings on the- climate, diseases, poisons and me- 
dicines of the most frequented regions, were transferred to the hands 
of the learned doctor Joan. de Laet, author of the richest compilation 
from the early writers on South America*, as Piso had no leisure for 
arranging and publishing them. Laet published these manuscripts, 
availing himself of the paintings which had continued in the Count's 
possession, and enriching them with his own additions, under the title: _ 
Historia naturalis Brasile, auspicio et beneficio ill. J. Mauritii, Comitis 
Nassovia, etc., Amsterd. 1648, fol. This work contains separate ac- 
counts of the labours of our two travellers. — Piso's are in four books; de 
aere, aquis et locis, de morbis endemiis, de venenatis et antidotis, and 
de facultatibus simplicium, under the common title: de Medicina Bra- 
siliensium. Marcgrav’s materials appear under the general title: His- 
toria rerum naturalium Brasilie, in eight books, of which the three - 
first relate to plants; the fourth to fishes; the fifth to birds; the sixth 
to quadrupeds and snakes; the seventh to insects, and the eighth to 
the country and its inhabitants; followed by an appendix, de Tapuyis 
et Chilensibus. Of the paintings placed at his disposal, woodeuts 
were taken, probably at the expense of the Prince, in order to accom- 
pany the text in their proper places; but these figures want frequently 
that sharpness and elegance, which belong to contemporary productions, 
and still more so those of a still earlier period; and M. Lichtenstein’s 
censure in this respect, as regards the zoological figures, applies equally 
to the botanical. The business of the edition was, in fact, not per- 
formed with the requisite accuracy and care; for “besides that the 
originals frequently admit of greater precision in their outlines, several 
figures are appended to the text in wrong placest.” It happens not 
rarely that the same figures appear in the works of both authors. A 
note of Laet (to Dodonea viscosa in Marcgrav, Hist. Plant. p. 76) 
makes it, moreover, probable that Marcgrav had a herbarium, from 
misphere ; a new theory of the lower planets; the doctrine of refraction and paral- 
laxes, a theory of the determination of longitude, and a dissertation to ascertain the 
true dimensions of the earth. Lichtenstein, 1. c. p. 203. 
* Novus orbis s. descriptionis Indie orientalis, L. xviii. Lugd. Bat. 1633, Fol. 
(Dutch edition, 1625, French, 1640.) ; 
+ Lichtenstein, 1. c. p. 203. 
