vi. PREFACE of the TRANSLATORS. 



circumftance of conflruction and arrangement, with 

 induftry and fagacity almoft peculiar to himfelf, we 

 have tranflated it, as far as might be, page for page, 

 and line for line : have accurately attended to his 

 mode of punctuation, and have introduced the aftro- 

 nomic characters with all the numerous capital and 

 italic types, which are uied in the original. 



As Linneus formed numerous diminutive and com- 

 pound words from the latin and greek languages, we 

 have endeavoured to conitruct correfpondent ones 

 from the engliih ; it were impofiible otherwife to equal 

 the concifenefs and precision of the original. We 

 have attempted to compofe the former, fo as to be 

 ealily familiarifed to an englifh ear, and intelligible 

 to the latin botanift ; as leaf leaflet, ftalk, fla/k/et, 

 valve vahelet, tooth toothlet, fpathe fpathelet, tube 

 tubelet, crown coronet y calyx cafyc/e ; of fuch dimi- 

 nutives the words tablet, circlet, bracelet, ringlet, 

 rivulet, icicle, particle, are examples in daily ufe. 

 Some of the common diminutive adjectives of the la- 

 tin, and thofe formed by the prepofition flub, whofe 

 correfpondent word in englifh would not allow of the 

 termination i/Jj, were found more difficult to manage 

 without periphrafes, as fubramofus thinly- branched. 

 Where they were evidently derived from the latin lan- 

 guage, we have fometimes retained the particle flub. 



We come now to thofe numerous compound words 

 constructed by our author in fo artful a manner, as to 

 depicture fuch a variety of forms, of leaves, fruits, 

 flowers, items, feeds, as no language was before ever, 

 made to defcribe. He has taken words expreffive of 

 well-known figures, as the words oblong and egg, and 

 by compounding thefe has given a form between them 



both 



