CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 151 



regards '^ life" as a result, and considers organized bodies, whether 

 vegetable or animal, as reducible, by inductive analysis, to the asso- 

 ciation of a power or force (call it " principle*' even) named vital (or 

 *' vitality"), en the one part, with modifications of matter on the 

 other. Now it strikes us that the whole of the truly admirably 

 executed Second Part of Professor Henslow's work, which is devot- 

 ■ed to the exposition of physiological botany, and the opening chapter 

 on *^* vegetable life — properties of tissues — vital properties — stimu- 

 lants to vegetation,'' &c., would have been divested of all difficulty 

 to the tyro, and consequently, therefore, enjoyed by him as in every 

 respect as free from avoidable mysticism as the lucid and chaste 

 manner in which the actions of the living vegetable tissues and 

 their laws are summarily expounded by the learned and otherwise 

 most successful author, in the sections which follow. Even allow- 

 ing, however, that our opinion, and it is only an opinion, is incon- 

 trovertible on the point upon which we have felt ourselves called 

 upon to animadvert, we have no hesitation in strongly recommend- 

 ing the 75th volume of The Cabinet Cychpcedia as one of the very 

 best hand-books, as the Germans would entitle it, upon descriptive 

 and j)hysiological botany with which any student can possess him- 

 self, now when the very season is in progress in which it may 

 almost, without metaphor, be said that nature is in the act of open- 

 ing fresh leaves and flowers for perusal and appreciation, in one of 

 the most interesting and chaste of her volumes. 



In reference to the illustrations, which are generally correctly 

 drawn, we must make an exception to the accuracy of the represen- 

 tation of the Hydrogeton fenestralis, fig. 52, p. 59, which appears 

 copied from Dr. Anthony Todd Thompson's work, and bears not the 

 slightest similitude to the natural skeleton of that plant. A gentle- 

 man who has two leaves in his possession, states that the form of 

 the leaf has a general resemblance to that of the Laurel, the fibres 

 are of a dark-brown colour, and are more open in the row on each 

 side of the mid-rib, than toward the margin. The form is that of a 

 narrow mesh or oblong square. 



We can find room only to express our admiration of Mr. Cottrell 

 Watson's meritorious and unpretending volumes, which we feel 

 assured will win him golden opinions from all discerning critics. 

 The research and minute labour required in the preparation of his 

 New Botanist's Guidej have been unsparingly bestowed, and in that 

 calm spirit of philosophy and tenacious untiring patience which 

 would lead one to suspect that his heart beats under that truly sus- 

 taining stimulus which constitutes the grand and characteristic trait 

 of the true German school. Be this as it may, the volume in ques- 

 tion includes the localities of the rarer plants of all the counties ^ 

 England and Wales, and wiU form a complete work in itself, if, by 

 any unforeseen circumstance, the publication of a second volume 

 shomld be prevented. 



Whatever comes from Mr. Watson's pen, and is authenticated by 

 Jiim, on the difficult and interesting subject of vegetable geography. 



