plants is derived from his generous assistance. In fact, the 

 vegetation of the northern and eastern parts of this great 

 country would have been almost as much unknown now, as it 

 was in 1810, had it not been for Mr. Cunningham. The Aus- 

 tralian Compositse for example, could not have been usefully 

 examined by M. DeCandoUe in his laborious revision of that 

 most difficult order, if the whole collection of those plants, 

 found by my lamented friend, had not been sent to Geneva. 

 Well might he be dissatisfied at the duties of Colonial Bota- 

 nist at Sydney, alluded to in the foregoing extract from the 

 Athenaeum, when he found that, owing to the ruthless par- 

 simony of the authorities, he was not only deprived of all 

 means of prosecuting his researches into the Botany of the 

 Colony, but, instead of being treated as a man of science, 

 was placed, by the nature of his duties, upon the footing of a 

 turnkey. If the evidence I possess upon this subject were 

 made public, it would excite feelings of astonishment and 

 disgust. 



AWARD OF A COPLEY MEDAL TO DR. BROWN, 



At the last anniversary of the Royal Society a Copley 

 Medal was presented to Dr. Robert Brown for his original 

 and important discoveries in vegetable anatomy and physio- 

 logy ; and thus has something like justice at last been done 

 to the character of one of the most learned naturalists, and 

 certainly the most profound botanist of our age. It must be 

 no little gratification to the friends of science that this should 

 have been one of the early results of a reformation in the 

 management of the Royal Society, under the enlightened ad- 

 ministration of the Marquess of Northampton. 



The following is the official declaration of the discoveries 

 for which the medal has been awarded: viz. *' The organiza- 

 tion of the vegetable ovule, immediately before fecundation 

 (published in 18'i6); and the direct action of the pollen, 

 manifested by the contact established between it and that 

 point of the ovulum where the embryo subsequently first be- 

 comes visible, and published in papers, in the years 1832 and 

 1833, and communicated to the Linnean Societv." 



