1S6 Natural Jlistoy. [Chap. Ill, 



Toren, and Dahlber.j^, Dr. Solander, Dr. Sparman, 

 sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Forster, and a long cata- 

 logue of modern circumnavigators ^nd travellers, 

 insomuch that the species now known and de- 

 scribed considerably exceed ticenty thousand"^. 



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

 join, that the eighteenth century has been pro- 

 duptive, beyond all former precedent, of great ele- 

 gance ii^ the execution of drawings and dcscrip- 

 tiom 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 knowledge of 

 botany, whether we refer to the convenient no- 

 menclatiu-ef now in use, to the modern concise 



created a baronet on the accession of George I to the throne of 

 Great Britain, being the ^rst English physician on whom an here- 

 ditary title of honour had been conferred 3 was advanc^ed to the 

 presidency of the lloyal Society in 1727 -, and died in 1^52. To 

 sir Hans Sloane the science of botany is greatly indebted. His 

 discoveries in the West-India islands were very numprpus and 

 valuable. These discoveries, though actually made in the seven* 

 tecnth century, were not fully laid before the public till the be- 

 ginning of the eighteenth. In 1707 he published the first vo- 

 lume of his great work, entitled A Voi/age to the Islands Madeira, 

 Barbadocs, kc. ; and in 1/25 he completed it, by the publication 

 of the second volume. This work may be considered as one of 

 the most valuable presents made to botanical science in the course 

 of tlic agr. — Pulteney's Skcic/ies. 



* See Berkenhout's Sj/nopsis cf Xatirral Jliaioiy, 2 vols, 12mo^ 

 1/89. 



t Condorcct, in his Pane gyric on Linna:us, expresses himself 

 thus : — '' Linnaus has been reproached with having rendered too 

 ef/^y tiie nomenclature of botany, and occasioned thereby the ap- 

 pearance of a great number of small works. This objection seems 

 only TO prove what progress botany has made under him. No- 

 thir.g, p<.TLap.^j. (^ iiicci better hov; far a L-ciencc b advauee-Jj tli.ia 



