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SOME INTERESTING ADDITIONS TO THE 
LIBRARY 
At intervals during the past summer, the library has, by gift 
or purchase, come into possession of quite a collection of old, 
and in some cases, rare works on botany and natural history. 
The majority of them, some four or five hundred volumes, were 
purchased as a collection in Berlin and as at present displayed in 
the library, previous to being shelved, are a most interesting 
exhibit of the development of printing and illustrating from the 
earlier books of the fifteenth century to the more elaborate and 
finished examples of the botanical knowledge of the latter end 
of the eighteenth century. 
The oldest volume in this collection is a manuscript of the 
fifteenth century, Macer, “Floridus de virtudibus herbarum,” 
written on thick vellum-like paper in close Gothic script inter- 
spersed with red initials. Its binding is contemporaneous with 
the script, of much-cracked red leather over wooden boards, em- 
bellished with large brass clamps and nails. The lining of the 
book is made up of a fine bit of old church musical ritual, which 
is yet quite legible both as to text and notes. With it also came 
a printed copy of the same work edited in Bale in 1581. The 
latter is a quaint old volume dealing with the virtue of herbs of 
all sorts and kinds from the violet to the cabbage, which are illus- 
trated by charmingly drawn little figures. 
The earliest of the printed books in the collection are two copies 
of the “ Ortus Sanitatis’’ and one of the ‘‘ Herbarius.” Of the 
“ Ortus Sanitatis’’ one copy was printed in Venice in 1511 and 
the other probably in Strasburg between 1491 and 1500, though, 
as the title-page and colophon are missing, the exact date is 
uncertain. They are mainly interesting as illustrating the natural 
history and medical knowledge of the time. They and their 
prototypes of a few years earlier were later printed and reprinted 
in many languages and in many places; wherever in fact the 
rapidly increasing printing presses were established. They are 
the lineal ancestors from which all the elaborate modern illus- 
trated natural histories of to-day have descended. As they were 
