HISTORY OF ZOOPHYTOLOGY. 415 



perhaps rather tended to support the erroneous hypothesis 

 which they were combating. * 



Peyssonnel was still living, and it was impossible that this 

 discussion should not interest him. Accordingly we find that 

 in 1751, he transmitted to the Royal Society of London a 

 manuscript treatise on coral and other marine productions,^ 

 of which Dr. Watson has given a review in the 47th volume 

 of its Transactions, published in 1753. The treatise was 

 sent to the English society, because, "that in France some 

 lovers of natural history do attribute and even appropriate to 

 themselves his labours and his discoveries, of which they have 

 had the communication ;" a charge probably directed against 

 Reaumur, but which the conduct of that illustrious man, so 

 far as appears, did not warrant. The treatise contains up- 

 wards of 400 quarto pages, and is the result of the observa- 

 tions of above thirty years, but we find in it no facts in sup- 

 port of his theory additional to those already mentioned, for 

 the greater portion of it is occupied with many details on the 

 medical uses and other applications of coral which have no 

 relation to the question at issue. J It seems at first to have 

 excited considerable attention among the members of the 

 Royal Society, but Peyssonners endeavours were doomed 

 ever to be unfortunate, for such favour as his theory was 

 likely to receive here was nipt in the bud by the opposition of 

 Dr. Parsons, a naturalist of considerable eminence, and an 

 active member of the society. The analysis of Peyssonnel's 

 treatise was read in May 1752, and in June of the same year 



* New Discoveries relating to the History of Coral, by Dr. Vitaliano Donati. 

 Translated from the French, by Tho. Stack, M. D., F. R. S., (Feb. 7, 1750). Phil. 

 Trans. Vol. xlvii. p. 95. Haller characterizes the original as " nobile opus, ex proprio 

 labore natura." Bib. Bot. ii. 400. See also Cuvier's Hist, des Sc. Nat. iii. p. 335. 



f Traite du corail, contenant les nouvelles decouvertes, qu'on a fait sur le corail, 

 les pores, madrepores, scharras, litophitons, 6ponges, et autres corps et productions, 

 que la mer fournit, pour servir a 1'histoire naturelle de La mer. By the Sieur de 

 Peyssonnel, M. D. Correspondent of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, of that 

 of Montpelier, and of that of Belles Lettres at Marseilles. This treatise was never 

 published. 



t M. Flourens has recently given a new analysis of this MS. treatise, of which a 

 copy is contained in the library of the Paris Museum ; and the account which Peys- 

 sonnel left in manuscript of his voyage to Barbary has been lately (1838) published. 

 See Ann. des Sc. Nat. n. s. ix. p. 334 et seq. 



