435 



species, received as such. It has been said that discoveries of new 

 ])lants are matters of chance, and they are so in a certain light. But 

 to see that one thing differs from another, and to know that it is 

 something new, are not matters of chance only. It requires good ob- 

 servation, and the previous possession of knowledge, to profit by a 

 chance, and we therefore give credit to Mr. Moore for his discovery, 

 postponing our decision upon the validity of the species for a more 

 extended examination of their characters in the living plants. The 

 more branched panicle of G. plicata, with its shorter outer palea, dis- 

 tinctly divided into three teeth at the tip, are sufficiently obvious dis- 

 tinctions from G. fluitans, in the dried examples distributed by Mr. 

 Moore. Other differences are pointed out by Mr. Moore and Mr. 

 Babington, though these are less obvious in the specimens. 



The "J. H. B." subscribed to the obituary-notice of the late Dr. 

 Graham, doubtless indicates his successor in the chair, himself gifted 

 with much the same popular qualities by which Dr. Graham was ho- 

 nourably and amiably distinguished; and, we may add, with a far bet- 

 ter general knowledge of Botany to start from. The botanical ap- 

 pointments made by our government, have seldom been appropriate, 

 but we fear that this defect appertains also to those made by other 

 patrons, so that we can make no special charge against the highest 

 powers. Too frequently men are appointed to academical chairs, or 

 other offices of emolument and honour whose knowledge of Botany is 

 of the slenderest kind, while in other instances good botanists are un- 

 fortunately selected to fill situations which are totally out of the circle 

 of their actual attainments. Though the late Dr. Graham did after- 

 wards acquire a respectable amount of botanical knowledge, to 

 meet the exigencies of his position, there can be no question about 

 the impropriety of his appointment to a botanical chair at a period 

 when his Botany had yet to be learned. Dr. Thomas Brown held the 

 office of Lecturer on Botany in Glasgow, before Dr. Graham. " Be- 

 fore retiring " writes Dr. Balfour, " he asked Dr. Graham to lecture 

 for him, which Dr. Graham declined to do, urging as an apology the 

 inadequacy of his botanical knowledge ; but ultimately he was pre- 

 vailed on to read Dr. Brown's lectures. On the resignation of Dr. 

 Brown, the Crown instituted a distinct Chair of Botany, and conferred 

 it on Dr. Graham, who was in the habit of referring to this appoint- 

 ment as an unexpected event, on which his future success in life de- 

 pended." Considerately and delicately as this passage is worded, it 

 nevertheless exposes a gross abuse of patronage, such as cannot be 



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