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Contents of the ' Botanical Gazette'' for 1849; a Monthly Journal 

 of Botany, Edited by Arthur Henfrey, F.L.S., &c. 



Periodical publication appears to become each year a more popu- 

 lar form of literature, both with readers and writers on science ; and 

 Botany has not been left out of this prevailing tendency of the times. 

 'The Phytologist' led the way as a monthly botanical journal and 

 miscellany, published at a price which placed it within easy reach of 

 almost all persons who could be supposed likely to feel sufficient in- 

 terest in a scientific study, to induce them to take and read a monthly 

 periodical specially devoted to the one subject. For seven years 'The 

 Phytologist' was alone in this career; the contemporaneous botani- 

 cal journals keeping to the old-established price of a half-crown for 

 the monthly Number. Last year, however, saw the commencement of 

 two other monthly journals of Botany, published at equal price with 

 ' The Phytologist.' One of these, namely, ' Hooker's Journal of Botany,' 

 was simply the continuation of an older periodical, in a smaller form, 

 and at a lower price, but otherwise very little changed in its real cha- 

 racter and objects. To this one some slight allusion has been for- 

 merly made in 'The Phytologist' (Phytol. iii. 452); and we may 

 probably mention it more particularly next month. Its objects ap- 

 pear to be quite different from those sought by ' The Phytologist;' 

 and it is addressed to a different class of readers. 



The other is altogether a new " venture" in the periodical literature 

 of botany ; and one that sails much nearer to the track of ' The Phy- 

 tologist,' without coming clearly within it. The ' Botanical Gazette' 

 has been ably edited during 1849 ; although, we may venture to say, 

 its so-intituled " Original Communications " appear to us rather too 

 frequently to be translations of papers published in foreign journals. 

 We by no means object to see such articles in an English form ; and 

 if it better suits the editor's convenience to include them among the 

 really " original " communications, we suppose that he will continue 

 to do so. The peculiarity is alluded to just now, in explanation of 

 our remark above, to the effect that the 'Botanical Gazette' does 

 not sail quite in the same course with ' The Phytologist.' While this 

 periodical has always been preeminently, though not quite exclu- 

 sively, a journal of British botany, the ' Botanical Gazette' becomes 

 more a journal or repertory of European and physiological botany, 

 through its translations, and in its miscellaneous news about foreign 

 botanists. Uncertain whether it would be continued through a 



