BOTANICAL NEWS. 63 



thoroughly examined the oklcr Chinese works on agriculture and botany. 

 These agree in stating that the grain was brought fi'om Sifan (or Lower 

 Mongolia), a district west of China, at a period probably long anterior to 

 the end of the fifteenth century, though the date of its importation is no- 

 where even hinted at. The paper is illustrated with reproductions of the 

 characteristic figures of Maize in the ' Pun Ts'ao Kang-mu,' or ' General 

 Treatise on Natural History,' published in 1597. Though these re- 

 searches cannot be said to settle the native country of Zea Mays, they 

 seem to establish the conclusion that the Old World is not originally in- 

 debted for it to America. 



Professor M. A. Lawson has detected, in the Sherardian herbarium pre- 

 served at Oxford, a parcel of plants collected during the voyage round the 

 world made by Dampier in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Only 

 18 species are mentioned in Ray's ' Historia Plantarura,' vol. iii. p. 225, 

 but the parcel contains 40 ; some, however, are indeterminable. It will 

 be of interest to know what were the other species found, to be included 

 in the account which we hear it is the Professor's intention to offer to the 

 Linnean Society. 



Communications have been received from : — .T. Sadler, T. R. A. 

 Briggs, J. Britten, R. Tucker, Prof. Dickie, Dr. W. Flight, Prof. Thiselton 

 Dyer, J. Bagnall, W. P. Hiern, C. E. Broome, W. W. Saunders, etc. 



Several papers and reviews stand over for want of space. 



[Mr. H. C. Watson has printed and circulated amongst botanists a 

 protesti, in the form of a letter to one of the editors of this Journal, against 

 the notice of the third part of the ' Compendium of the Cybele Britannica,' 

 which appeared in these pages last December (Journ. of Bot. Vol. VIII. 

 pp. 394-397). As this printed letter denies the truth of certain state- 

 ments contained in that notice, it was thought desirable that it should be 

 placed before all the readers of the Journal. Mr. Watson was tlierefore 

 requested to allow it to be stitched into the cover of the present number, 

 the Journal ofiering to be at the expense of printing the necessary copies, 

 but to this request he returned a decided refusal. It would occupy too 

 much space to reprint the letter ; probably, however, those who care to 

 see it, will be able to obtain a copy by application to the author. The 

 reviewer's answer to Mr. Watson is printed below. 



16M Januunj, 1871. 



Dear Mr. Watson, 



I have carefully read through the printed letter which you have sent 

 rae, and which, though addressed to Mr. Baker, is directed against me, 

 the author of the review to which you object ; and I feel it necessary to 

 answer it. It exhibits four charges against me : 1st, that I have misre- 

 presented you ; 2nd, that I have unjustly charged you with omission or 

 neglect ; 3rd, that I have insinuated piracy or plagiarism on your part ; 

 4th, that I have exhibited an unwarranted "dogmatism, arising "from io-no- 

 rance and a desire to display a fancied superiority. 



I Avill dispose of these charges in order. 



1st. The " misrepresentation." The statement objected to, I repeated 

 from a review of the first part of the ' Compendium' (also written by me) 

 in the 'Journal of Botany' for December 1868 (Vol. VI. p. 375)! As 

 you took no exception to that notice, and have continued your contribu- 

 tions to the Journal and friendship towards me, I had no' reason to sup- 



