ALPHONSE DE CANDOLLE. 407 



of the continuation of the Prodromus, until, on the completion of 

 the Dicotyledons in the seventeenth volume, issued in 1873, it was 

 necessarily abandoned, not from indifference on his part, but because, 

 owing to the rapid increase of collections and explorations in recent 

 times, the field had become too great for a single work on the original 

 plan of the Prodromus. In nothing are the moral and intellectual 

 qualities of De Candolle better seen than in his management of the 

 Prodromus. To a certain. extent, sacrificing his individual preferences 

 to a sense of filial duty, he devoted hiiuself to the completion of the 

 great work planned by his father, sparing neither thought nor money. 

 Although the working up of the numerous orders was, of necessity, 

 entrusted to specialists, too much cannot be said in praise of his good 

 judgment in supervising the whole and of his constant courtesy 

 towards and just appreciation of other botanists, which enabled him 

 to secure the Avilliug aid of experts when necessary. Although the 

 Prodromus, as a distinct work, came to an end with the completion 

 of the seventeenth volume, Alphonse de Candolle, assisted by his son 

 Casimir, began in 1878 a series of MonographicB Phanerogamarum, 

 to include some orders not treated in the Prodromus, and revisions of 

 certain of the orders contained in its earlier volumes. 



The great work of De Candolle was his Geographie Botanique 

 Raisonnee, which appeared in 1855. In this he displayed at their 

 best the qualities which marked him as a great botanist in a field in 

 which he was not overshadowed by the greater reputation of his 

 father, as had been the case in his earlier writings. It is probable 

 that the writings of Humboldt had first attracted him to the study of 

 the distribution of plants. In the Geographie is clearly seen the legal 

 quality predominating in his mind. This may in part be attributed 

 to his early professional studies but it is not unlikely that it was to a 

 great extent inborn. He brought together an immense number oi 

 facts, arranged them with great skill, and reviewed them collectively 

 with a clear, unpartisan criticism worthy of a judge on the bench. 

 He had such a talent for collecting statistics, and using them with 

 discretion, that, had he not been brought up as a botanist, we might 

 almost supjiose that he would have been a political economist. In 

 estimating the value of the Geographie we should not forget that it 

 was published four years before the appearance of Darwin's " Origin 

 of Species." Bearing this in mind, we cannot fail to recognize the 

 great superiority of this work over previous works on distribution. 



The position assumed by De Candolle in his Geographie can be ex- 

 pressed best in the following condensed translation of his own words : — 



