MEMOIRS, &c. 



327 



is no other monument to him, and his gar- 

 den is uncared for, an enormous Magnolia 

 acuminata rears its head to the skies, and 

 at first sight induces the question, " Who 

 planted that ?" No inscription is needed 

 to tell of worthy deeds ; his reputation sur- 

 vives, and we feel satisfied that Marshall, 

 with his rural pursuits and botanical plea- 

 sures, must have been an honest, worthy, 

 thinking man ; and such he was — not as 

 eminent as Bartram, but with his fondness 

 for research, and love of natural history. 

 Both passsd an innocent and useful life, and 

 while their pursuits were their own reward, 

 have reaped the additional fame of a wor- 

 thy commemoration by a valued and useful 

 follower of their tastes, and eminent bota- 

 nist. 



By a curious coincidence, this large vol- 

 ume of Dr. Darlington's, on which he has 

 expended no little labor, induced by the love 

 of the topics discussed by Bartram and his 

 celebrated correspondents at home and 

 abroad, we find lying, as we write, in jux- 

 taposition with the erudite works of Dr. 

 Asa Gray and of Dr. Torrey. Here are 

 the records of the beginning of the study of 

 botany and its full fruition. When Bar- 

 tram and his correspondents commenced 

 their researches into the mysteries of Na- 

 ture, they were possessed of blind guides ; 

 order had not sprung into existance; James 

 Logan writes : 



[LOGAN TO BARTRAM.] 



" Friend J. Bartram : — Last night, in the twi- 

 light, I received the enclosed, and opened it by 

 mistake. Last year Peter sent me some tables, 

 which I never examined till since I last saw thee. 

 They are six very large sheets, in which the au- 

 thor (Linnaeus) digests all the production* of Na- 

 ture in class-es. Two of them he bestows on the 

 inanimate, as stones, minerals, earths; two more 

 on vegetables, and the other two on animals. 

 His method in the vegetables is altogether new, 

 for he takes all his distinctions from the stamina 

 and the styles, the first of which he calls husbands, 

 the other wives. He ranges them, tluerefore, un- 

 der those of 1 husbands, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 



12, 20. and then of many husbands. He further 

 distinguishes by the styles, and has many heads, 

 under which he reduces all known plants. 



The performance is very curious, and at this 

 time worth thy notice. I would send it to thee, 

 but being in Latin, it will want some explanation, 

 which after I have given thee, thou wilt, I be- 

 lieve, be fully able to deal with it thyself, since 

 thou generally knows the plants' names." p. 3<>7. 



Linnaeus, thus characterised by a cotem- 

 porary ! " His performance is very curi- 

 ous !" How little did the writer know of 

 his future fame, unequalled by any previ- 

 ous or subsequent discoverer. 



The correspondence, while it pictures the 

 trials and exposures of the early adventu- 

 rers among the mountains, and Indians, and 

 savannahs, in pursuit of specimens for the 

 enthusiasts abroad, shows plainly the 

 amount of ignorance under which they all 

 labored ; indeed a person possessed of little 

 love for nature would be almost pardcned 

 for declaring that if a parcel of schoolboys 

 were now to sit down and write as these 

 letters are written, they would be laughed 

 at. But knowledge has made vast strides 

 since the year 1730 ; particularly is this the 

 case in botany. " If we embrace," says 

 Humboldt in his Aspects of Nature, (so 

 pleasantly translated by Mrs. Sabine, and 

 just published in Philadelphia.) " in one 

 general view the different species of phaeno- 

 gamous plants at present contained in 

 herbariums, the number may now be esti- 

 mated at considerably above SO, 000."* 



* •' We must carefully distinguish between different ques- 

 tions: How many species of plants are described in printed 

 works? how many have been discovered, ». e. contained in 

 herbariums, though without being described? how many 

 are probably existing; on the globe ? Murray's edition of 

 the Liuneun system contains, including eryptoganiia. only 

 10.042 species Willdenow, in his edition of the Species 

 Plantarum. between the years 1797 and 1S07, hnd nlready 

 described 17. 1.57 pasnogamous meoiea, (from Monandria to 

 Polygamia dioecia.) It" we add 31)00 cryptogamons species, 

 we obtain the number which Willdenow mentions, viz. 20,- 

 000 species. M"re recent researches have shown how much 

 this estimation of the number of species described and con- 

 tained in herbariums falls short of the truth Robert Brown 

 counted 37,000 phsnogBBOlM plains, t afterwards attempt- 

 ed to give the geographical distribution lin different pari* 

 of the earth already explored) ol 14,000 phanogamous and 

 cryptogamons plants. DScandotle found in comparing Per- 

 soon'fl Bncbiridrom with his Universal System ia 19 several 

 families, thai the writings of betanists and Kur pean herba. 

 riums taken together might be assumed to contain 56.000 

 species of pluuts. If we consider how many species hare 



