10 
—but isolated authors would do us a favor and help themselves 
materially as well if they would send to leading foreign institutions 
copies of their works. One single copy of these studies in a scien- 
tific library in this country would have put us in touch with the 
late Dr. Posada. 
The fourth work is of least consequence botanically, and may be 
well-known to geographers. This is the ‘Estadistica Natural 
del Estado Zulia (Venezuela),’’ by José I. Arocha, published at 
Maracaibo in 1897. The “Natural Statistics of the state of 
Zulia” is largely geological and topographical, but the fourth 
part, embracing about half the work, and of over 200 pages, is 
biological, and again about half of this is botanical. Economic 
and otherwise important plants are entered with considerable 
account of each, but to taxonomists the work probably has slight 
interest. 
Still a fifth work may be mentioned. This is one seen in an 
old bookstore in Bogoté, but not purchased, as I then sup- 
posed our library already contained it. We have made a 
special study of the flora of the island of Curacao in the Dutch 
West Indies, and this ‘“‘Compendio de Botanica Elemental,” 
by C. Hurtado, was published there in 1891. It is a text-book of 
elementary botany, of 433 pages, for the use of South American 
schools and lyceums. It was written in Venezuela, and that it 
was only later planned at all for Curacao is shown by the fact 
that mention of that island is confined to an appendix treating 
of its flora. In footnotes a few new plant names are mentioned, 
though but one of these, [vis Benitesia, of which fortunately I 
copied a description, is validly published. An interesting con- 
nection of this work with those of Colombia, making it a logical 
outcome of the scientific tradition of Mutis and Triana, is that 
Sr. Hurtado is a graduate of the University of Bogota. 
FRANCIS W. PENNELL. 
