And does the mariner, from the long use of salt provision, need 

 some prompt remedy for its scorbutick influence"? He may 

 coast along the shores of the most distant regions in the North 

 or South, and be furnished with the succory, the cresses, and the 

 wild-sorrel, from Siberia to the remotest of the Pacifick isles. 

 The Botanical Materia Medica is but an enlargement of this 

 interesting thought. 



But on a theme so vast I dare not venture further. It is re- 

 plete with interest and instruction, wheresoever we direct our 

 eyes, from the most attenuated lichen, that is scarce discoverable 

 on the rock, to the huge baobab, developing its mammoth trunk 

 of eighty feet ; and from the lowliest moss that peeps above the 

 surface of the soil, to the towering palm-tree of the tropicks, 

 almost two hundred feet in elevation.* As the march of know- 

 ledge shall advance, and man be more mizmtely taught the 

 mysteries of Nature, this wide field of Science, with an increased 

 earnestness, shall be explored. What has been accomplished 

 in the heavens by the rare genius of Laplace, bold, brilliant, and 

 aspiring, by some future Linne may be accomplished in re- 

 gard to earth; and while the blue vault, and while the verdant 

 landscape, are more and more distinctly uttering : 



" The hand that made us is divine," 



the philosopher and Christian will continually be attracted by 

 new themes of " wonder, love and praise." 



It has been my object, not to venture far within this vast 

 domain, but merely to suggest what may awaken the resources 

 of a learned and intelligent assembly. A single pearl proclaims 

 the boundless treasure of the deep ; one gem is witness of ex- 



* Malte-Brun, Syst. Geog. B. XX. Vegetation of the torrid sone. 



