730 KEPORT— 1881. 



high rank as such, paved the way to a con-ect study of botanical geography. 

 Before his time little or no attention was paid to the topography of plants, and he 

 was the first to distinguish, to lay down rules, and to supply models for these two 

 important elements in their life-history — namely, their habitats or topographical 

 localisation, and their stations, or the physical nature of their habitats. In his 

 * Stationes Plantarum,' ' Linnaeus defines with precision twenty-four stations 

 characterised by soil, moisture, exposure, climate, &c., which, with comparatively 

 slight modifications and improvements, have been adopted by all subsequent 

 authorities. Nor, indeed, was any marked advance in this subject made, till 

 geological observation and chemical analysis supplemented its shortcomings. In 

 his essay ' De coloniis plantarum,' published fourteen years after the ' Stationes,' * 

 he says, ' Qui veram cunque et solidam plantarum scientiam aucupatur, patriam 

 ipsarum ac sedem cuj usque propriam baud sane ignorabit,' and he proceeds to 

 give an outline of the distribution of certain plants on the globe, according to 

 climate, latitude, &c., and to indicate their means of transport by winds, birds, 

 and other agencies. India (meaning the tropics of both worlds) he charac- 

 terises as the region of palms ; the temperate latitudes, of herbaceous plants ; the 

 northern, of mosses, algee, and coniferae ; and America, of ferns ; — thus preparing 

 the way for the next great generaliser in the field.' 



This was the most accomplished and prolific of modern travellers, Humboldt, 

 who made Botany a chief pursuit during all his journeys, and who seems, indeed, 

 to have been devoted to it from a very early age. His first work was a botanical 

 one, the ' Flora Friburgensis,' and we have it on his own authority that three 

 years before its publication, when he was only just of age (in 1790) he commimi- 

 cated to his friend, G. Forster, the companion of Cook in his second voyage, a 

 sketch of a geography of plants. It was not, however, till his return from America 

 that his first essay on Botanical Geography ■* appeared, which at once gave him 

 a very high position as a philosophical naturalist. Up to the period of its appear- 

 ance there had been nothing of the kind to compare with it for the wealth of 

 facts, botanical, meteorological, and hypsometrical, derived from his own observa- 

 tions, from the works of travellers and naturalists, and from personal communica- 

 tion with his contemporaries, all correlated with consummate skill and discussed 

 with that lucidity of exposition of which he was a master. The great feature of 

 this essay is the exactness of the methods employed for estimating the conditions 

 under which species, genera, and families are grouped geographicallj', and the pre- 

 cision with which they are expressed. 



This was succeeded in 1815, and subsequently, by four other essays on the 

 same subject. Of these the most valuable is the ' Prolegomena,' ^ in which he 



' Amanitates Academica:, vol. iv. p. 64, 1754. 



■^ Ibid. vol. viii. p. 1, 1768. 



' Between the dates of the writings of Linnasus and Humboldt, two noteable 

 works on geographical distribution appeared. One by Frid. Stromeyer ( Commentatio 

 itiauguralis sistens Historic Veget.aMliuvi GengrapMcce specimen, Gottingen, 1800), 

 is an excellent syllabus of the points to be attended to in the study of distribution, 

 but without examples ; the other is a too general work by Zimmermann, entitled. 

 Specimen Zoologice OeogrivpMca, Quadrvpedum Doimeilia et Nigrationts si^iens, 

 Lugd. Bat. 1777, which he followed by Geograpliisclie Gescldclitc den 3Iensehen, und 

 der allgemeiii verhreiteten vier/iissiffen Tkiere, nehst einer liiehcr geMrigen Zoologi- 

 selien Weltcharte, Leipsic, 1778-1783. 



■* ' Essai sur la Geographic des Plantes,' par A. de Humboldt et Aime Bonpland ; 

 redigee, par A. de Humboldt, i« a la, Classe des Sc. Phijs. ct Math, de VTnstitut 

 Nationak, 17 Nivose de lAn 13, 1805. 



' ' De Distributione Geographica plantarum secundum coeli temperiem et alti- 

 tudinem Montium, Prolegomena.' This appeared in quarto in the first volume of 

 the Nova Genera et Species Plantarum, in 1815, and separately in an octavo form 

 in 1817. Humboldt's other works on geographical distribution are Notationes ad 

 Geograpldam Plantarum spectantes, 1815; Ansichten der Natur, 1808, and Ed. 2, 

 1827 ; Nmivelles Beclierclies sur les lois que Von observe dans la Distribution des 

 fm'ints vegetates (1816); and an article with a similar title in the Dictionaire des 

 Sciences Naturelles, vol. xviii. p. 422, 1820. 



