elfewhere. In this ftate I offer the refult of my labors to the Botanic world, in 

 hopes that its numerous defe&s will be excufed ; when it is confidered that the 

 Confervse were verv lately involved in fuch obfcurity as to have been publicly 

 termed ' the opprobrium of Botany.' * 



If we look back to what had previoufly been done in this department of 

 fcience, we (hall find that Linnxus was too bufily engaged' in the immenfe field 

 he had entered on, to fpare the time neceflary for an inveftigation of the fub- 

 mcrfed Algae, as appears both from his writings and Herbarium, in which 

 latter fcarcely any fpecimens of Confervse are preferved. In the /pedes Planta- 

 rum, and alfo in the works of mod other authors, the fubjeft is treated fo 

 flight'y, that many different plants may not only be often referred to the fame 

 defcription, but were actually dcfigned by the writers to be included under it ;. 

 and even thefe fhort defcriptions are chiefly borrowed from Dillenius, who 

 remained almoft the only original author on the Ccnfervz, till Dr. Roth pub- 

 lifhed the firft Fafciculus of his Catalecla Botanica, in 1 797. Eyen of Hudfon's 

 defcriptions in the Flora Anglica, many are entirely borrowed from the Hijloria 

 Mtifcorum, and thofe which he has taken from his own obfervations are too 

 fhort to be of much fervice. Lightfoot, indeed, when he relied upon himfelf 

 alone, is perhaps more than any other author exempt from fuch a charge, and 

 the only thing to be lamented in this excellent Botanifl is, that he allowed him- 

 felf fo often to tranfcribe the works of others, who were far inferior to himfelf 

 in the art either of obferving or of recording their obfervations. Had Dillenius 

 accuftomed himfelf to the ufe of a microfcope, there is little that might not 

 have been expe&ed from his accurate pencil ; but, for the want of this afliil- 

 ance, he has frequently confounded feveral fpecies together, which agree only 

 in external habit, and has even defcribed fome as jointlefs in which diffepiments 

 are readily obfervable with a common glafs. The only magnified drawings of 

 Confeme, to which reference with any tolerable precifion could be made prior 

 to the clofe of the laft century, were thofe of Mr. Ellis, in the 56th volume cf 



* Dr. Smith's Introductory Difcourft, Lin. Trans. I. p. 34. 



