H. BOTANY AND HORTICULTURE. s'jg 



According to Dr. Gimbert, the first essays with this tree 

 were made at the Cape of Good Hope, where in two or three 

 years a very remarkable change in the public health was 

 aj^preciable. In Algiers it is said that quite a number of 

 settlements that had been notoriously unhealthy before its 

 introduction became entirely changed in this respect. 12 ^, 

 October 30, 1873, 380. 



COMPLETION OF DE CANDOLLE's PKODROMUS. 



A fact of much interest in the history of science is the 

 completion, in a seventeenth volume, of the great botanical 

 work, "Prodromus Systematis Xaturalis Regni Vegetabilis" 

 by M. Alphonse de Candolle. The work was commenced 

 fifty-two years ago by the father, and at his death was con- 

 tinued by the son, and a grandson (the son of Alphonse de 

 Candolle) who performed important service in finishing the 

 book. We learn from a communication made by De Can- 

 dolle to the Academy of Sciences in Paris that the first seven 

 volumes were almost entirely prepared by liis father, who 

 died in 1841. 



From that time others were enlisted in the service, and no 

 less than thirty-five persons in all were engaged upon the 

 Avork, each author taking some special monograph, and work- 

 ing it up to the best of his ability. Among those mentioned 

 as havino; contributed most to the "Prodromus" are Messrs. 

 Bentham, of London ; Meissner, of Basle ; Dunal, of Montpe- 

 lier; Miiller,Decaisne,Moquin-Tandon,Duchartve, and others. 



The work treats of 214 families, 5134 genera, and 58,975 

 species. Extensive as it is, however, it only reaches to the 

 end of the dicotyledons, and thus joins on to the great work 

 of Kunth on the monocotyledons. 



The author is justly proud of the influence which this work 

 has exerted upon the progress of botany, and the nse which 

 is made of it in preparing other monographs. It has also 

 done a great deal toward introducing the principles of the 

 natural system, especially in the division of families, genera, 

 and species, as well as the true principles of nomenclature, 

 and particularly that of the law of priority. 



The total number of new genera and species described in 

 the work is given at 657 for tiie one, and 11^790 of the other. 

 6 B, October 20, 1873, 866. 



