%i6 Natural History in Foreign Countries, 



table culture and scientific description, are various and important. In the 

 first place, an end will be put to the doubts respecting the comparative 

 durability of plants propagated by extension, and those propagated by seeds. 

 In the second place, from details which we cannot fully enter into, the de- 

 •criptions of natural orders and genera may be reduced to short definitions, 

 and the employment of signs, somewhat in the manner of algebra, be 

 adopted, instead of long descriptions. Dr. Martins showed us a proof- 

 sheet, in which a number of natural orders, beginning with J^anunculaceae, 

 were defined in less than two lines each, and some in only one line, by signs 

 arid numerals. We shall not follow these very remarkable views further, 

 lest we should fall into error, and because we hope, in our next Number, 

 to give them in more detail. 



It is possible that, as the study of natural science advances, the language 

 of scientific description may be greatly simplified and abridged. This haa 

 already been done by Linnaeus, and may be carried still farther by such in- 

 ventions as that of which we have endeavoured to give an idea. It is more 

 easy to conceive this, than it is to conceive with what facility, and in how 

 short a time, a knowledge of all the objects of natural history may ulti- 

 ihately be acquired j and that which is at present considered learning and 

 science, and confined to a few specially devoted to it, may at length be 

 universally possessed in every civilised country, and in every rank of life. 

 To have speculated, two centuries ago, on the probability of all the inha- 

 bitants of a country being able to read, write, and count, as they now are 

 in Bavaria and Wurtemberg, would not have been thought more preposte- 

 rous than to assert, at the present day, the practicability and probability of 

 mechanics, chemistry, and natural history being, two centuries hence, com- 

 mon acquirements of the country labourers of Europe; 



Ratkbony Nov. 10. — There are a Botanical Society here and a small 

 Botanic Garden. A periodical, exclusively devoted to botany. The Bo- 

 tanische Zeitung, has been published at Ratisbon since 1801. Its projector 

 and first editor was Dr. Hopp^, the president of the Society; and its present 

 editor is his pupil. Dr. Eischweiler, who has lately commenced another 

 periodical, in like manner exclusively devoted to botany, entitled LUeratur 

 blinker fiir reine und angetv-andte Botanich, &c. The Doctor is of opinion, 

 that there ought to be a periodical exclusively devoted to every separate 

 division of natural history and literature; for he finds, in the present state 

 of things, in which one journal embraces so many objects, that he cannot 

 discover every thing which is published respecting botany, though he devotes 

 himself entirely and exclusively to that science, and has access to all or most 

 of the periodical publications of Europe. The Bulletin des Sciences Natu- 

 relles of Baron Ferussac, which he acknowledges to be the most complete 

 thing of the kind in existence, he says, does not contain notices of the half 

 of what is published in Germany on natural history ; and his own journal, 

 be doubts not, is likely to be deficient, both in respect to England and 

 America. The truth is, that ninety-nine hundredths of what is published 

 in the world of literature is mere repetition, in one country or language, 

 of what has been published in another, or known long before. What is 

 really new is like a grain of Virheat in a bushel of chaff. At all events, we 

 are certain of this with respect to agriculture and gardening, in which there 

 has been very little novelty since the time of the Romans, who, on their 

 part, seem to have added nothing to what was known to the Greeks. With 

 the progress of things, it is probable that th^ literary men of every country 

 may finally arrange themselves in one grand republic ; and that all which is 

 already known and worth becoming acquainted with, in each particular 

 department of science and literature, being fixed in one elementary and 

 fundamental work, a committee of the whole world, for each particular 

 department or subdivision, may be employed to record the increments 

 liyhich are added to WHrh as they are discovered. There will then be such 



