376 Scientific Intelligence. 



condition of the lower classes of the people, which induced the sovereign 

 council of Geneva to devote a sum of money for their maintenance, ex- 

 pressing a wish, at the same time, that they should be employed in pre- 

 paring the ground for the garden. 



Soon after a private subscription was entered into, which, being aided 

 by almost all the inhabitants of the city, speedily furnished the govern- 

 ment with the necessary funds for constructing the inclosures, hot-houses, 

 and green-houses, &c ; and the government likewise undertook to contri- 

 bute to its future support. The buildings were erected in 1818, and such 

 was the zeal shown in the promotion of this institution, and in fulfilling 

 the wishes of the learned Professor, and such the number of seeds and 

 plants that it received from various quarters, that, from the following 

 year, its advantages began to be perceived, and already a number of use- 

 ful and ornamental plants were thence distributed through the country. 

 Every year the garden has increased in value; and, at this moment, the 

 directors of it are constructing a museum therein, for the purpose of de- 

 positing a herbarium, and collections of fruits and seeds. This building, too, 

 is erected at the expence of a private individual, a citizen of Geneva, who 

 has withheld his name from the public. 



The taste for painting flowers being very general at Geneva, and M. 

 De Candolle, principal director of the garden, having already had occasion 

 to witness * the anxiety with which the private artists sought the means 

 of rendering their talents useful, invited them to draw, upon a uniform 

 scale, the plants which flowered in the garden, with the view of preserv- 

 ing the recollection of them, and of forming a collection which might be 

 valuable to botany, and as specimens of the art. This request was grant- 

 ed with pleasure, and already upwards of 300 coloured drawings, either 

 made from nature by private artists, or given by the benefactors to the 

 garden, compose the collection, " Eh qui pourra, as M. De Candolle him- 

 self well observes, " nous 1' esperons, servir un jour d'exemple de la maniere 

 dont l'espirit public peut, dans les petites republiques, compenser quel- 

 ques-uns des avantages des grands Etats." 



It is from the portfolio of drawings thus formed, that M. De Candolle 

 will select those plants which are either entirely new, or which are not 

 well figured in any work, in order to publish them by livraisons, accompa- 

 nied by such scientific descriptions and observations as are necessary for 

 their complete history. 



The present Livraison contains, 1. 2. the Pinus canariensis, Buck, of 

 which two plates are given, and which seems never to have been well de- 

 scribed or understood. Some had taken it for the Pinus Larix, others 

 for the Pinus Tieda, whilst others had confounded it with the Pinus ma- 



* M. Mocino, one of the authors of the Flora of Mexico, having given all the ori- 

 ginal Drawings of that work to M. de Candolle, that he might publish them in his 

 name, and having afterwards, on his return to Spain, desired to possess them again, 

 M. De Candolle expressed a wish to have copies made of the most interesting of 

 them. In the short space of a week, with one accord, as it were, all the artists 

 came forward, copied for him nearly a thousand drawings, and have thus been the 

 means of preserving the most valuable part of the collection. 



4 



