98 SHORT ON WESTERN BOTANY. 



Philosophical Journal, some years ago, given an account of the progress 

 of Botany in the northern half of the New World ; and have in the 

 Botanical Miscellany, and the Companion to the Botanical Magazine, 

 and in the first volume of this Journal, published an account of the botani- 

 cal travels of Dr Scouller, Mr Douglas, and Mr Drummond, together with 

 many of their plants ; whilst our Flora Boreali- Americana, bears testi- 

 mony to the exertions of those very individuals, as well as of Dr Richard- 

 son, and the other ofBcers of our expeditions in search of a north-west 

 passage through the seas of Arctic America, in the British possessions. 

 It was reserved for our valued friend and correspondent, Dr Short or 

 Lexington University, to enlarge more particularly on the discoveries that 

 have been made in the western territories of the United States, and we 

 gladly give insertion to his interesting sketch in the pages of our Journal. 

 Four years indeed have elapsed since this paper was written, and Mr 

 Nuttall's most extensive and important travels to the Pacific remain yet to 

 be detailed. We trust, at a future period, to be able to resume this sub- 

 ject, and to bring forward many particulars of the labours of others, who 

 have contributed to enrich the North American Flora of Messrs Torrey 

 and Gray, one of the most valuable botanical works that has ever issued 

 from the press, whether in the Old or in the New World. — Ed.] 



In the rapid increase of knowledge which has distinguishea 

 the close of the eighteenth and the commencement of the 

 nineteenth century, every department of science has felt the 

 animating influence of improvement. In every branch or 

 knowledge, and particularly in those which depend on facts 

 and observations for their support, the increase and improve- 

 ment has been great and rapid; and in every branch ol 

 Natural History these results are particularly striking. 

 Zoology is no longer the study of one individual; quadru- 

 peds and birds, and fish and insects are become distinct 

 pursuits ; even the different orders of insects have attracted 

 and fully occupied different observers, and their forms and 

 habits and splendid drapery have been noted and delineated, 

 until the imagination is almost become wearied with contem' 

 plating the boundless variety of organized beings, and the 

 variety scarcely less boundless of habits, instincts, and qtiali- 

 ties. Mineralogy and Geology, though each treating of the 

 same inorganic portions of the globe, have become divided 

 into distinct studies, each fidly occupying all the powers of 

 the most ojifted minds. 



