VOL. XXXVl.l PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 321 



agreeable to the phagnomena ; he is greatly at a loss how to account for it. 

 He cannot well conceive that an instrunnent of the length of 36 feet, con- 

 structed in the manner he describes his, could have been liable to an error of 

 near 30", which was doubtless the case, if rectified with so much care as he 

 represents. 



The observations of Mr. Flamsteed of the different distances of the pole star 

 from the pole, at different times of the year, which were through mistake 

 considered by some as a proof of its annual parallax, seem to have been made 

 with much greater care than those of Dr. Hook. For though they do not all 

 exactly correspond with each other, yet from the whole Mr. Flamsteed con- 

 cluded that the star was 35" or 40" or 4b" nearer the pole in Dec. than in May 

 or July : and according to Mr. B.'s hypothesis it ought to appear 40" nearer in 

 Dec. than in June. The agreement therefore of the observations with the hy- 

 pothesis, is greater than could reasonably be expected, considering the radius 

 of the instrument, and the manner in which it was constructed. 



END OF VOLUME THIRTY-FIFTH OF THE ORIGINAL. 



y4 Catalogue of the Fifty Plants from Chelsea-Garden, presented to the Royal 

 Society, by the Company of Apothecaries, for the Year \T17 , pursiiaiit to 

 the Direction of Sir Hans Sloane, Bart, by Isaac Rand, F. R. S. N° 407, 

 p. 1. FoI.XXXFI. 



An Account of the first Decade of a Book, entitled, Johannis Martyn* His- 

 toria Plantarum rariorutn. London, 1728. By Mr. Rand, F. R. S. N° 407, 

 p. 4. 



In this work, Mr. Martyn, has had the plants of their natural size, exactly 



• " At the dawn of learning, (says Dr. Pultney, in his excellent Sketches of the Progress of 

 Botany in England) the seeds of botany had been first sown in England by Dr. Turner, at Cam- 

 bridge. They can scarcely, however, be said to have germinated until a century afterwards, under 

 the fostering care of Mr. Ray. By his cultivation they took root, although not invigorated by public 

 support. In the mean time, through the munificence of the Earl of Danby, Oxford experienced 

 the benefit of a public institution in aid of this science, and botany flourished under the care of 

 Morison. After his time, to die establishment of Dillenius, it languished ; no publication marked 

 its progress ; and its history at Oxford is void of interesting facts. Nearly the same languor pre- 

 vailed after the time of Mr. Ray at Cambridge, and botany attained no strength till the time of Dr. 

 Martyn, who, under the patronage of the University, gave the first public lecture in that depart- 

 ment in the year 1727." 



" Of this learned Botanist I am now, in the order of time, to present the reader with some ac- 

 count : and here I find myself agreeably anticipated by the relation of his life and writings prefixed 

 VOL. VII. T T 



