30 NOTICES OF BOOKS, 
Sciences Naturelles for July, 1848; yet we gladly notice it, as giving 
us the opportunity of announcing that this botanist and traveller is 
preparing an admirable and elaborate work on Cinchona, and the allied 
genera. His remarkable journey across the whole continent of South 
America, from Rio de Janeiro to the Pacific, and his residence in the 
Cinchona countries of Bolivia and Peru, gave him great facilities for 
studying the medicinal barks i» loco natali, and the trees producing 
the respective kinds, of which he has not failed to avail himself; 
and, as we have seen many of the materials of the work, of which the 
present article is but the Prodromus, we can safely declare that it will 
constitute a publication of great value to the botanist as well as phar- 
macologist. To render his work more complete, Mr. Weddell has 
visited the Herbaria in England, as well as those on the continent, 
and thus he will be enabled | to clear up many doubtful synonyms. The 
geographical distribution of the genera and species has occupied much 
of the author’s attention, and his observations on that head will be 
found peculiarly interesting. 
Previous to the voyage in question to South America, Mr. Weddell, 
after completing his medical education at Paris, devoted much time to 
an accurate investigation of the Flora of the environs of Paris, the 
result of which is well known. In 1843 he was attached by the 
Museum of Natural History of Paris, as physician and botanist to the 
Scientific Expedition of M. de Castelnau, in 1843. The party pro- 
ceeded to Rio de Janeiro, thence to the river Tocantins, a tributary 0 
the Amazon, which they descended as far as Fort Barras, where they 
entered the Araguay, which they ascended, nearly to its source. From 
this point their course was due west, deviating from time to time at- 
cording to circumstances, and especially in one direction, southward, 
to the confines of Paraguay, to Bolivia. They surveyed the vast inland 
lake of Titicaca, and reached the coast at Arecipa. Mr. Weddell 
returned to Europe and reached Paris, we believe, during the year 
1848. Some of the party subsequently went down the Yavari, and 
descended the Amazon river, but not without the loss of their bag- 
gage, collections, and journals, and what was still more unfortunate, of - 
two of their party, owing to the treachery of their guides, 
According to Mr. Weddell, in the Revue here noticed, the genus 
Cinchona, of Linn., is divided into five genera; viz., 1, bidon: of 
which he enumerates twenty-one species, giving characters of the 
