154 The Life and Writings of 



Defines the genus Mazama. Describes Galago minu- 

 tus, Cants leucoxurus, Castor europeus, Cervus melanopus, 

 Mazama bira and Mazama pita. Of these several are 

 simply removed from another genus. 



37. [Review of] A Manual of Botany for the Northern States, com 

 prising generic descriptions of all Phenogamous and Crypto- 

 gamous plants to the north of Virginia, hitherto described, &c, 

 &c. Compiled by the Editor of Richard s Botanical Dictionary. 

 Albany. Webster & Skinners. 1817. i2tno. pp. 164. (Amer 

 ican Monthly Magazine and Critical Review, Vol. I, No. 6, pp. 

 426-430. New York. 1817.) 



This reviews very harshly the first edition of Baton s 

 Botany. The review begins thus: 



&quot;The work before us, has no higher claim than to the title of 

 a mere compilation; but compilations are sometimes very useful 

 when properly and skilfully executed, and this manual professing 

 utility as its avowed object, it may be incumbent to examine how 

 far this desideratum has been attained. It is ushered under the 

 patronage of the members of the Botanical Class in Williams 

 College, Massachusetts, for whose use it appears to have been 

 compiled, and whose thanks are offered to the author for his 

 pains. While it must be highly gratifying to observe that as 

 many as sixty-three students have signed that address, and attended 

 the lectures on mineralogy and botany, delivered by the author in 

 that College, and while they express their gratitude towards him 

 in terms highly commendable, it may be proper to hint, that 

 students are not in general the best judges of what is most useful 

 in their pursuits. What they deem such, may often prove otherwise, 

 and they are but seldom enabled to detect the errors of their teachers, 

 while they are taught to consider them as doctrines and truths.&quot; 



