36 REPORT—1874. 
instructive elementary works, more readily intelligible treatises and clear 
expositions of abstruse subjects, than any other language I am acquainted 
with. For the botanist, therefore, as well as for all naturalists, its study is 
still, and I believe will long remain, of first-rate importance. 
The English language has of late years been recommended by more than 
one continental naturalist for general adoption as a vehicle for international 
scientific intercourse. It partakes of some of the advantages of both the 
French and the German. Though less brilliant, it offers more variety than 
the former, it is less involved than the latter, and it appears to be capable 
of giving more precision and force to argument than either. It is now the 
national language of the largest proportion of the civilized population of the 
globe, and its use continues steadily to spread out of Europe generally, and 
to a certain extent among European naturalists and other educated classes, 
especially in eastern and northern Europe. They begin to admit the neces- 
sity of consulting our untranslated treatises and memoirs, and our German 
and east European botanical correspondents, at least, accept English letters 
as readily as French. In southern Europe French is still much more gene- 
rally understood; but even there the objections to the extended use of our 
language for botanical works have now, I believe, lost much of their force. 
The German is a more difficult language, much more difficult, indeed, for 
the Latin nations of southern and western Europe than for ourselves. Its 
construction is involved, its extraordinary copiousness occasions a strain upon 
the memory ; but it affords great facilities for giving expression to minutely 
distinguished details, whether of fact or of thought. It may thus frequently 
give greater solidity to their theoretical expositions than the French, but is 
infinitely more difficult to translate; and to those who are not thoroughly 
used to its intricacies it seems to foster, if not to create, confusion of ideas. 
Germany has now, however, so long included so many publishing centres of 
scientific importance, and its language has been so generally used by Scan- 
dinavian and Sclavonian, as well as by their own naturalists, that a sufficient 
acquaintance with it, to study the very numerous works it produces, can no 
longer be dispensed with by the general botanist. 
The Dutch language, notwithstanding the number of scientific working 
naturalists the country has fostered, both at home and in its Malayan colo- 
nies, has too limited a range to be generally studied, and is not likely to 
extend. It is much to be regretted, therefore, that it should have been so 
much made use of for works intended for the use of others as well as of their 
own subjects. Some of the late Professor Miquel’s most valuable essays 
(that, for instance, on the vegetation of Sumatra with relation to its physical 
conditions) remain a sealed book for the botanical community at large. I 
perceive now, however, that their more important papers in the ‘ Archives 
Néerlandaises’ and some other journals are being printed in French as well 
as in Dutch, and we must hope that so commendable a practice may in future 
be generally adopted. 
The Scandinavian nations, Denmark and Sweden, whose men of science 
have included a large proportion of the most eminent naturalists, have always 
felt the objections to the publication of the results of their labours in their 
own language. Linneus conducted his foreign correspondence and edited all 
such works as were intended for foreign use in Latin, and his example was 
much followed. In the first half, however, of the present century, both 
Danes and Swedes began to indulge more in the use of their native languages, 
and some important essays, especially on geographical botany’ and on the 
cryptogamic section of systematic botany, have appeared in that disguise. 
