380 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 



in observation, the most philosophical in contemplation, and the 

 most faithful in description, amongst all the botanists of his own, or 

 perhaps any other time." To Ray the British botanist is indebted 

 for the first good Flora of his native land. At an early period of 

 his life he gave to the world his Catalogus Plantarum circa Canta- 

 brigiam nascentium, which was followed in a few years by his Cata- 

 logus Plantarum Anglian et Insular um adjacentium. The third edi- 

 tion of the latter work was entitled Synopsis Methodica Stirpium 

 Britannicarum,and is still universally known : this also passed through 

 three editions, the last of which was considerably enlarged and im- 

 proved by the celebrated Dillenius. His earliest attempt as a ge- 

 neral systematist was the Methodus Plantarum nova, in which avail- 

 ing himself of the labours of former writers, corrected by his own 

 philosophical genius, he produced an outline in several respects su- 

 perior to those of his predecessors. His later Methodus Plantarum 

 emendata et aucta adopts many of the views advanced by his ge- 

 nerous rival and contemporary Tournefort. These systems, modified 

 from time to time according to his continually increasing knowledge, 

 had been employed in his Synopsis, and in conformity with them 

 he digested his Historia Plantarum generalis, a work of immense 

 labour and research, which contains descriptions of nearly 20,000 

 species of plants, arranged in a systematic order, many of the groups 

 of which are purely natural, and agree perfectly with those admitted 

 by the best informed of modern botanists. In the first book of this 

 History, entitled De Plantis in genere, Ray fully established his 

 rank as a physiological botanist. His detached remarks on the mo- 

 tion of the sap in plants, and on other points of vegetable physio- 

 logy are there embodied with the principal discoveries made by 

 previous or contemporary writers, so as to form, according to Du 

 Petit Thouars, the most complete treatise which yet exists on Ve- 

 getation taken as a whole. " To isolate this book and to reprint it 

 in a separate form," continues that distinguished botanist, " would 

 constitute the most noble monument that could be erected to the 

 memory of Ray." 



As a Geologist the fame of Ray must rest on his Three Physico- 

 theological Discourses concerning the primitive Chaos and Creation, 

 the General Deluge, and the Dissolution of the World; a highly 

 popular work, which was frequently reprinted, and which proposes 

 a theory at least as plausible as any which had then appeared, or 

 was advanced until long after its publication. A portion of his 

 Collection of Unusual or Local English Words ; with the Prepara- 

 tion of Metals and Minerals in England, &c, proves also that he was 

 by no means neglectful of this interesting branch of natural science 

 so often as he possessed opportunities of attending to it. 



The preceding list, copious as it appears, contains only the more 

 important works of Ray as a naturalist, without including his Ap- 

 pendices, his Supplements, his Catalogues, his detached Papers, &c, 

 and without adverting to his various publications on Philology, his 

 Travels, his Philosophical treatises and letters, and his Theological 

 productions. Of the latter, one, however, cannot be passed by with- 

 out 



