148 Account of the late Professor Vahl. 



merit. Bat the work to which he most sedulously di- 

 rected the powers of his genius and his labour, was 

 the Enumeratio Plantarum, as he modestly called it. 

 Professor Fabricius's information respecting the un- 

 finished state of this work will be read with pain by 

 every botanist : for an extensive work on the Species 

 Plantarum, from the hand of such a master, is a trea- 

 sure which we still, and probably must for a long time, 

 desiderate. 



It is a circumstance not a little remarkable, that 

 three of the greatest botanists whom the world has 

 yet produced, were natives of the chilly regions of the 

 north of Europe, beyond the latitude of 60: Linnaeus, 

 who was born in the province of Smoland (in Sweden), 

 Solander, who v.as a native of Pitea (in Westerbotn), 

 near the Arctic circle, and Vahl, a Norwegian! How 

 little docs this fact favour the opinion of the Abb6 

 du Bos, and other writers, who have laboured to 

 prove, that climate exerts a most decided and imme- 

 diate influence upon the human intellect? And how 

 much does it favour the opinion of the philosophical 

 Gray, who attributes so little to what has been hap- 

 pily denominated the " skyey influence*?" 



• Shakespeare's Mcas'ire lor Measure. 



