]xxviii PROCEEDINGS OF THE 
in Mosambique by Dr. Peters has been published at Berlin im a 
pretentious illustrated volume, chiefly by the late Dr. Klotzsch. Dr. 
Welwitsch has given a preliminary list of the Angola portion of his 
collections, in the Annales do Conselho Ultramarino for 1858 ; 
Dr. Wawra and M. Peyritsch, in a Sertum Benguelense, have 
described a small set of Benguelan plants gathered by the former 
during a fortnight’s stay of the Austrian corvette Carolina on that 
coast; and a few detached papers on isolated genera or species have 
appeared here or at Paris. I may add, however, that there is now 
some hope that our Admiralty is about to take steps for obtaining 
some practical result from these botanical expeditions, in the saEy 
of a General Flora of tropical Africa. 
Next to tropical Africa, the most remarkable novelties in botany 
are supplied by New Caledonia and Madagascar. These are chiefly 
in French hands; and detached notices of some of them have ap- 
peared in various French periodicals. I understand, also, that the 
authorities of the Jardin des Plantes are in hopes of inducing their 
Government to sanction at least a Flora of New Caledonia, in imi- 
tation of the Colonial Floras of other Governments. 
There remains the New World; and here my first feeling is one 
of deep pain, in which all lovers of progress and civilization must 
partake. The deplorable internecine contest now going ‘on in the 
once United States of North America appears to have put a stop to 
all works of importance in natural history, so many of which were 
supported at considerable cost by their Government. Dr. Torrey’s 
papers on Fremont’s Californian Plants and Mr. Chapman’s Flora 
of the Southern States were fortunately completed before the out- 
break ; but the valuable publications of Dr. A. Gray on their own 
flora, or on that of various countries visited by their expeditions 
or collectors, remain incomplete, or are only continued in abridged 
notices in Proceedings of some of their Societies. I feel sure that 
every lover of science will join in the fervent wish that our gifted 
cousins may soon turn from scenes of bloodshed, and again devote 
themselves to the cultivation of the arts of peace and progress. 
In South America there are two States whose comparative tran- 
quillity has enabled their Governments to pay some attention to the 
calls of science. The vast empire of Brazil is in a state of progress. 
Rio Janeiro has her Vellozian Society of Natural History, whose-se- 
cretary, Dr. Capanema, has recently returned from accompanying as 
Naturalist an expedition for the investigation of the resources of several 
of the tropical districts ; and it is chiefly the support of the Brazi- 
lian Government that enables Dr. v. Martius to continue the elaborate 
