ELISHA MITCHELL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. 21 



etable world and blending both into the animal kingdom. Against 

 these and many similar heresies and hallucinations the authors do 

 not fail to caution their readers. 



This work was prepared under several disadvantages. The Ger- 

 man writers on cryptogamia had, it is true, been found of great ser- 

 vice in determining nice and difficult questions, and to them Alber- 

 tini and von Schweinitz repeatedly acknowledged their obligations; 

 but they had to lament that their remoteness from the richer treas- 

 ures of scientific truth, the vast libraries of metropolitan cities, did 

 not allow them to consult the productions of investigators who had 

 preceded them. 



At a subsequent period when treating of the fungi of America, 

 von Schweinitz was enabled to profit by the contemporary labors of 

 those whom he is pleased to term the coryphaei of mycological science, 

 such as Fries, Nees, Link and Kunz, and he then takes occasion to 

 remark, that all the genera described by them are likewise found in 

 America, and that indeed but few species are known in Europe, (ex- 

 cept those parasitic fungi which belong to hosts not found here,) 

 but what are equally the products of both continents. 



It is not perhaps among the least interesting and creditable cir- 

 cumstance connected with the publication of this work that twelve 

 plates containing figures of ninety-three species of new fungi were 

 drawn, engraved and colored by the hands of von Schweinitz him- 

 self. We are assured, by one who was at that period his pupil, that 

 he " recollects the untiring research with which our departed friend 

 amidst the various arduous duties of his office, (that of tutor at 

 Niesky), pursued his favorite study, and the labor bestowed by his 

 own hands on the colored plates of the well known ' Synopsis Fun- 

 gorum.'' " The modesty with which the plates are submitted to the 

 public, marks in a distinct manner, both the meritorious character 

 of the man and the style of his Latin composition : 



'•' Si quis severior tabularum nostrarttin contemplator, nonnulla 

 in Us nee fortasse pauca, desideraverit — eum, ne prima sese artis 

 exGiisorice tirocinia unico scientice amore duce et auspice tentata co- 

 ram^ habere obliviscatur rogatuni velimus.'''' 



One might hazard the opinion, that even in more recent works of 

 natural history, many far less creditable specimens of the same art 

 have found place without being able to urge the apology that they 

 were the first efforts of a tyro, and without the commendatory pleas 

 that the love of bcience had guided and ushered them into public view. 



In his paper on the genus Viola, von Schweinitz makes the inter- 

 esting remark, that of all the American species of violet, thirty or 



