144" Nalnral History. 



To the details above stated, it is proper to satr- 

 join, that the eighteenth century has been pro- 

 ductive, beyond all former precedent, of great ele- 

 gance in the execution of drawings and descrip- 

 tions of plants. These are too numerous, and too 

 well known to render any particular account of 

 them necessary here. It is sufficient to say, that 

 all the means of communicating a know^ledge of 

 botany, whether wx refer to the convenient no- 

 menclature'" now in use, to the modern concise 

 and intelligible style of description, to the splendid 

 representations of nature, by means of accurate 

 figures and coloured plates which every where 

 assist the student, or to the multiplication of Bo- 

 tanic Gardens" and of Herbaria, as appendages to 

 seats of science, they may be said to have reached 

 a stage of improvement, within a few years, which 

 the human mind never before contemplated. The 

 recent exhibition of the Linna^an system by Dr. 



m CoNDORCET, in his Panegyric on Linnjcus, expresses himself thus: — 

 " LiNNHiUS has been reproached with having rendered too easy the nomen- 

 clature of botany, and occasioned thereby the appearance of a great number 

 of small works. This objection seems only to prove what progress botany 

 has made under him. Nothing, perhaps, evinces better how far a science 

 is advanced, than the facility of writing books of mediocrity on such a 

 science, and the difficulty of composing works which contain novelty of 

 matter." Stoever's Life of Linnaus. 



n Though Botanic Gardens have been greatly multiplied, during the last 

 century, in Europe, by scientific individuals, and by seminaries of learning, 

 our own country has never been able to boast of a single establishment 

 ■which deserved the name. This deficiency is now likely to be in some 

 measure supplied, so far as it respects the State of Ne'w-Tork, by the lau- 

 dable z-eal of Dr. David Hosack, Professor of Botany in Columbia College. 

 This o-entleman has lately purchased ground for a Botanic Garden, in the 

 vicinitv of the city of New-York; and is going on, at his own expense, to 

 fumi-h it with the necessary stores of indigenous and exotic plants, for ren- 

 dering it an useful and ornamental institution. It is to be hoped that his 

 exertions will be seconded by public aid; and that the State of New-York, 

 already eminently distinguished for its rapid progress in wealth and im- 

 provement, will not suffer the weight of supporting such an establishment 

 to fall on an individual, viho, after all his care to accomplish himself for 

 jhis branch of instruction, in a foreign country, and his zeal in forming the 

 test private botanical library in the United States, cannot be expected to 

 devote all his resources to an object which ought to be fostered by publitr 

 muuilicencc, and cherished as one of the honours of the State. 



