LDTNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. xlvii 



men of science, from Antoine Laurent de Jussieu and his colleagues 

 to the eminent professors of the Jardin, who have now passed 

 through the siege, that I may he allowed to express an anxious hope 

 that when the crisis is passed, when the elasticity of French 

 resources shall have restored the wonted prosperity, the new Govern- 

 ment may at length perceive that, even pohtically speaking, the de- 

 mands of science require as much attention as popular clamour. 



The Delesserian herbarium has been well received at Geneva, 

 where it has been adequately deposited in a building in the Botanical 

 Garden, very near to the I^atural-History Museum now erecting. 

 At Paris it had been for some time comparatively useless, owing to 

 the attempt to class it according to Sprengel's Linnaeus ; but noAV an 

 active amateur committee, Messrs. Jean Mueller, Renter, Rapin, 

 and others, under the presidency of Dr. Fauconnet, have already 

 made great progress in distributing the specimens under their natu- 

 ral Orders : and Geneva, already containing the important typical 

 collection of De Candolle, as well as Boissier's stores rich especially 

 in Mediterranean and Oriental plants, has become one of the great 

 centres where real botanical work can be satisfactorily carried on ; 

 and as she has had the good sense to level her fortifications, she may 

 accumulate national treasures with more confidence in the future. 

 Munich had lost much of the prospects she had; the Bavarian Govern- 

 ment failed to come to terms with the family of the late Von Mar- 

 tins ; his botanical library has been dispersed, and his herbarium 

 removed to Brussels, where it is to form the nucleus of a national 

 Belgian collection. At Vienna the Imperial herbarium is now ad- 

 mirably housed in the Botanic Garden, and is in good order, with 

 the great advantage of a rich botanical library in the same rooms. 

 At Berlin, where the Eoyal herbarium, like the zoological museums, 

 has always been kept in very excellent order, want of space is greatly 

 complained of since it has been transferred to the buildings of the 

 University. At Florence, as we learn from the ' Giomale Botanico 

 Italiano,' the difficulties with regard to the funds left by Mr. Webb 

 for the maintenance of his herbarium have been overcome ; and it is 

 to be hoped that the Uberal intentions of the testator, who made this 

 splendid bequest for the benefit of science, will no longer remain so 

 shamefully unfulfilled. To the above six may be added Leyden, 

 Petersburg, Stockholm, Upsala, and Copenhagen as towns possess- 

 ing national herbaria sufficiently important for the pursuit of 

 systematic botany ; but when I visited them, now many years since, 

 they were all more or less in arrear in arrangement. I know not 

 how far they may have since improved. In the United States of 



