24 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



tions followed, irrespective of the vast and telling contributions to the 

 " Prodromus." In 1855 appeared his memorable and large work 

 on the geography of plants, involving ample considerations of 

 achievements in sciences collateral to abstract phytology ; in this 

 book for the first time and mainly from Melbourne-material the 

 Flora of Central Australia came under comparative consideration 

 and connected review. Jn 1867 Alphonse de Candolle became 

 the principal legislator for the naming of plants through his " Lois 

 de la Nomenclature de Botanique," then adopted by the Inter- 

 national Botanic Congress in Paris. In 1880 came out a special 

 volume on sound rules, how plants professionally ought to be diag- 

 nosticised, with multifarious appertaining data as the outcome of 

 sixty years' severe experience of his own. The year 1883 saw appear 

 his "Origine des Plantes cultivees," a monument of studies, requir- 

 ing reference even to works in the oriental languages ; this book 

 again is the result of that extraordinary methodicity, evinced in 

 all his extensive writings, and acquired as a heirloom from 

 Augustin Pyramus de Candolle ; it elucidates with infinite 

 patience and rare grasp of mind a number of questions, bearing 

 on this abtruse and complicate rural subject, much buried in far 

 past history and often only to be unravelled from distorted 

 traditions and other unreliable records previously accepted. But 

 Alphonse de Candolle's attention was not limited to what his 

 special callings demoded from him ; because his history of the 

 sciences of the last two centuries (1872), therefore of the 

 progress of nearly the whole of newer knowledge through the 

 world, bears witness of the wondrous range of his perceptions 

 and inquiries. With filial piety he devoted the latest of his 

 volumes to reminiscences of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. 

 What could be more fascinating, than to learn of the personal 

 contact of many bearers of sciences belonging to different 

 centuries ? What could be more elevating, than glimpses on the 

 individual and mutual relations of great masters in knowledge 

 through several centuries from the standpoints of such rulers of 

 mental efforts as these two botanic coryphseans? What consola- 

 tion must it have been to Alphonse de Candolle, when passing 

 away, to see in hopeful brightness these touches in an elder 

 science-world renewed in a younger one by Casimir de Candolle 

 at the verge of a century, through which his two nearest ancestors 

 were so luminous ? The vivid interest, displayed by the Genevese 

 phytologic sage in all that concerned his favourite science, 

 remained undiminished to the last. Even within about two 

 weeks of his death he pondered over progressive details for the 

 greatest of his works, as shown by a last communication to the 

 author of these lines, who with pride can look on a series of 

 letters, received from Alphonse de Candolle during more than 

 three decades of time, and who is reminded of similar parting 



