274 NATURAL SCIENCE. April, 



we find certain stratified sandstones alluded to as "schist " (i, 189), 

 doubtless a mistranslation of " skiff-r." The word " steinen," the 

 stone, is translated as " Rocks." The Norwegian " strand-linie," 

 should be " beach-line." " Snails " (II. 308) should be " gastropods." 

 As for the zoology, the exiracts we have given show that the 

 proofs were read by no scientific Englishman, probably not even by 

 the author. There are a tew discrepancies in the spelling of proper 

 names between Nnnsen and Mr. Montefiore Brice ; the Johansen, 

 Koetlitz, and Blomqvist of the former are the Johannesen, Kettlitz, 

 and Blomvist of the latter. 



The illustrations deserve more praise than we have space for. It 

 is so nice to feel that they are all from photographs and must be so 

 truthful. And yet — well, who was the photographer Nansen and 

 Johansen went to when they were alone on their sledging journey ? 



Welwitsch's African Plants. 



Catalogue of the African Plants collected by Dr. Friedrich Welwitsch 

 IN 1853-61. Dicotyledons, Part I. By W. P. Hiern. British Museum (Natural 

 History). Printed by order of the Trustees. Pp. 336. London, 1896. Price 

 7s 6d. 



Friedrich Welwitsch was born in 1806. His father, the owner of 

 a large farm in Carinthia, sent him to study law at Vienna University. 

 His own tastes, however, were so strongly botanical that in conse- 

 quence of his abandoning law for flowers his father withdrew his 

 allowance. He then supported himself at the University for a time 

 by writing dramatic criticisms, until, as the biography prefixed to this 

 catalogue tells us, an " act of youthful indiscretion on his part, in the 

 course of enjoyii.g too freely the gaieties of Vienna, rendered it 

 expedient for him to leave Austria tor a time." After some excellent 

 work in Portugal, he left, in 1853, on his great Angolan journey, 

 probably the most fruitful African expedition ever made by a botanist. 

 He explored and thoroughly searched iiiOst of Angola and Benguella 

 during eight years, suffering great hardships and frequently prostrated 

 by fever, dysentery, and other African maladies. On one occasion he 

 was besieged for two months by some 15,000 rebellious natives. 

 Finally, he sailed for Lisbon with his great collection, contained in 42 

 huge packages occupying about 319 ctibic feet. This consisted of 

 some 5,000 species of plants and 3,000 specimens of insects and 

 animals. The number of new forms, including the unique Welwitschia, 

 was extraordinary. After tliis it is not pleasant to read of his poverty, 

 ill-health, and death in London, where he stayed in order to work over 

 his collections with but small support from the Portuguese Govern- 

 ment. After his death in 1872, that government attempted, by a suit 

 in Chancery, to obtain the whole of his collections ; but Messrs. W. 

 Carruthers and F. Justen, who defended at their own risk, were 

 successful in retaining the best set (after the study set) for the British 

 Museum. 



• We are now presented with the first instalment of a complete 

 catalogue of that collection so happily preserved, and it begins 

 appropriately with a portrait of Welwitsch, and a complete 

 bibliography, not merely of the author's own papers, but of others 

 dealing more or less directly with his collections. This volume, which 

 has been carefully prepared, well printed, and handsomely bound, 

 covers the Thalamifloras and the Leguminosee as far as the order 

 Rhizophoraceae. Would it not have been better to have begun at the 

 other end of the fiora ? More valuable and novel results would 



