French National Institute. 281 



very excellent manuscripts on the science of agriculture, and 

 some uorki already published on particular branches of it. 

 The important places with which government has intrusted 

 them ui this part of the administration, and their extensive 

 acquirements in the physical sciences, have equally been 

 taken into consideration : the class has had the pleasure of 

 adopting both of then) as its members. M. Silvester has 

 succeeded M. Cels 5 and M. Bosc, a profound naturalist as 

 well as an experienced agriculturist, and from whom we 

 have derived many iniportant works upon the history of 

 animals, has taken the place of the veterinarist Gilbert, 

 which h;is been vacant these five years. 



In the botanical dopartmciU there was no place to dispose 

 of, except thai of ttic late M. Adanson ; but the competi- 

 tion has not been the less brilliant on that account, both in 

 the number and importance of the works which the candi- 

 dates have submitted to the judgment of the class. It ought 

 to be a 2;reat satisfaction to the friends of the sciences to be 

 informed of these striking proofs of the zeal of those who 

 cultivate them. 



M. Palisot de Beauvois, who was the successful candi- 

 date, had strong claims, founded on his travels in Africa and 

 America, on his Flora of Oivare and of Benin, which we 

 have often mentioned as havmg added some singular plants 

 to botany; on the Flora of the United States of America, 

 \vhich he is preparing, and of which he has already given 

 some interesting specimens; and, lastly, on his long re- 

 searches upon the subject of those plants comiDonly deno- 

 minated cnjpiogamia. These researches partly consist of 

 descriptions of new species, and in establishing genera or 

 other methodical distributions, of which it would be diHicult 

 to give an extract ; but they also comprehend more general 

 objects, and chiefly a system upon the fecundation of mosses 

 and mushrooms, which we think ourselves so much the more 

 bound to anaiyse, because, although this fecundation has 

 been for a long time announced in works in very extensive 

 and well-merited circulation, botanists do not seem to have 

 paid sufficient attention to it. 



>Vc know that the mosses produce at a certain period pc- 



dicles 



