380 



In a general sense, the truth of this adv ertisement may be admitted, 

 although some rather important part of the truth is suppressed. The 

 Transactions do include papers of botanical value ; and taken in the 

 aggregate, the " papers " are such as deserve the eulogy pronounced 

 upon them by the committee. But it does not so surely follow that 

 " the Society's reputation as a scientific body" will be much promoted 

 by the republication, in 1845, of papers read before the Society in 

 1843 and 1844, and then printed as articles in a periodical. I cannot 

 help thinking, that the republication of articles from old Nos. of a pe- 

 riodical, ivithout change or correction, under the name of " Transac- 

 tions," is not very creditable to a scientific society. To say nothing of 

 their being, as they must of course be, only such a selection from the 

 real Transactions as the individual editor of a periodical had thought 

 fit to print in his journal. And moreover, taking into account the 

 post-date (1845) of the republication, the act looks very like wilful 

 injustice to other botanists, and an obstacle in the progress of science. 



It is unjust to other botanists by its silent neglect of those works, 

 in which more accurate elucidations of the same subjects had been 

 published, between the original date of the articles and the post-date 

 of their republication under the imposing name of "Transactions." 



It becomes also an obstacle in the progress of science, because it 

 lays before botanists the earlier and less accurate, in place of the 

 later and more accurate, knowledge on the subjects treated, and that, 

 too, with all the impress and influence which the name of a scientific 

 society can give. In this way it is eminently calculated to mislead 

 those who have not the leisure for collation and comparison of facts 

 and dates in different periodicals ; or, it may be, not the means or in- 

 clination to purchase all the works which would be required for the 

 purpose of amending the false impressions conveyed to them. 



That this is not mere conjecture, but a positive fact, may easily be 

 shown by an example from the " Transactions." In plate IX. we have 

 some good representations of the leaves of "Robertsonian Saxifrages." 

 The plate is intended to illustrate a paper firom the pen of Mr. Babing- 

 ton, entitled, " On the difference between the Robertsonian Saxifrages 

 of Ireland and those of the Pyrenees." The sole purport of this emi- 

 nent botanist's paper, is to state that the leaves of the Pyrenean Saxi- 

 frages {Sax. hirsuta, Sax. Geum, Sax. umhrosa), all differ in rather a 

 remarkable manner from those of the Irish examples of the same 

 species : namely, in the leaves of the Pyrenean plants being "crenate," 

 while those of the Irish plants are " acutely crenate," " serrate," or 

 " dentate." If this really had been a fact, it would have been a cu- 



