324 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO IGQS. 



face relates the success of several experiments he made to discover the saks con- 

 tained in the earth, wherein plants grow, many of these were done with great 

 labour and nicety. He likewise gives his opinion of the several ways of the 

 operation of medicines on human bodies, and of the causes of the same. 



The book, is divided into six herborisations, each of which contains the plants 

 he met with in the course of a walk. To the names he gives each plant from 

 the best and most common authors ; he adds a critical account of the extant 

 descriptions and figures of each, viz. where it is ill, and where well described 

 and figured. He gives often an account of the chemical analysis of it, which 

 he generally extracts from the registers of the Academic Royale ; also an account 

 of the virtues ascribed to each plant, from the most approved authors, or from 

 information received from the inhabitants of several countries he lived in, or 

 travelled through. 



Account of a China Cabinet, Jilled ivith several lasirumenls, Fruits, &c. used in 

 China : sent to the Royal Society by Mr. Buchly, chief Surgeon at Fort St. 

 George. By Hajis Shane, M. D. N° 246, p. 39O. 



These instruments are chiefly those used by the Chinese surgeons, and are 

 very clumsy and inconvenient. They consist of rasors of different sorts, knives, 

 ear-pickers of several shapes, brushes, &c. 



Remarks, by Mr. James Petiver, F, R. S, on some Animals, Plants, &c. sent to 

 him from Maryland. By the Rev. Mr. Hugh Jones. N° 246, p. 303. 



Sect. I. Crustaceous Animals. — 1. Testudo terrestris Americana, dorso 

 clato. Its shell an inch and a quarter long, and one broad, the scales about the 

 edges are quadrangular, those above pentangular ; he is guarded along the back 

 with a round ridge; his head about the size of our horse-bean; the orbits of 



haying discovered a vast number of new and rare plants, &c. The fatigues of his otKcial capacity and 

 his professional engagements at length threw him into a declining state oj iieallh, which was soon 

 rendered hopeless by an accident of a similar nature to that which caused the death of Morison ; the 

 pole of a coach running against his breast while he was crossing one of the streets of Paris. Tourne- 

 fort however survived a few months, and died on the "0th of Dec. 1708. 



The system of Tournefort, which is chiefly founded on the flower or corolla, is undoubtedly far 

 superior to every preceding one ; and though he did not invent a mode of systematically detining the 

 genera of plants l)y words, (which was reserved for the great Linnaeus,) yet, as has been well ob- 

 served by Mons. Delamarck, he was no less sensible of the distinctions of his genera, and lias caused 

 them to be figured in so able a manner that they cannot easily be mistaken.* 



* Sec Dr. Smith's introduclory di^couise on the Rise anil Progress of Natural History, in (lie lirst volume of the 

 Transactions of the Linnsean Socicly. 



