€2 Insl'ilule cf Fiance. 



five to the hed»e rose, &c. If the same rigorous severity were 

 e\teiuled to the wliole of natural history, it woiihl be greatly 

 , simplitied and elucidritcd ; but naturalists, to attain this ob- 

 ject, must renounce the vain honour of augmentinc; without end 

 the list of known species. 1(1 the present state of scieiice there 

 would certainly be more real giory in dimlnishinsj this list. 



M. Delille, a meniber of the Institute of Egvpt, read to the 

 Class a very interesting history of the ])lants, wild aiid cultivated, 

 of that celebrated country. He intends that it shall form part 

 of the great work on Egypt, to which so many men of talents 

 and learning have contributed, and \\Iiicli is published with a 

 magnificence proportioned to the grandeur or an enterprise of 

 which it will be the most durable monument. The author di- 

 stinguishes the plants peculiar to Egypt fr^un those which are 

 carried thither by the inundation of the Nile and the winds of the 

 Desert, and from those which are common to other countries : he 

 fixes the limits assigned to each species in this long and narrow 

 valley, by the latitudes, by the qupJity, more or less saline and 

 more or less sandy, of the soil : he makes known the variations 

 produced by each soil on the plants which grow in several soils ; 

 and he carefully explains the species cultivated, and the at^ 

 tention whicli each requires on account of the climate peculiar 

 to that comitry, and perhajjs unique in its kind throughout the 

 world. We have to regret that a work, essentially composed of 

 details, cannot be more fully noticed consistently with the limits 

 of this report. 



M. Decandolle has published an elementary theory of botany, 

 in which he explains all the varieties of form and combination of 

 the organs, as well as the terms by which they are expressed, 

 establishing the rules of every reasonable nomenclature, and giv- 

 ing a general theory of the methods of distribution, and parti- 

 cularly of that which is called 7wtyral, because it is founded on 

 the essential relations of vegetables to each other. He enters on 

 this head into various considerarions, which are peculiar to him- 

 self, as to the value of these relations, and on the organs and 

 conformations of organs in which they ought to be found : he 

 suggests new views or differences in appearance very consider- 

 able between certain vegetables, and v^hich nevertheless arise 

 from the abortion or unnatural junction of some of their organs. 

 Setting out from th.e species in which this abortion or junction 

 is openly manifested, he proceeds to other species where these 

 phaenomena are not visible, and \''h!Cii they must take for granted 

 from analogies similar to the hypothesis to which men of science 

 have recourse when they are deserted by facts, in order to leave 

 no vacancies in tiie chain of their developments. These me- 

 thods might be dangerous in less adroit hands, but M. Deean- 



dolle 



