ÖFVERSIGT AF K. VETENSK.-AKAD. FÖRHANDLINGAR 1895, NIO 5). 619 



It is in quarto and of course printed the said year and 

 near tlie timc of its public dlscussion. It consists of seven un- 

 numbered pages of introduction and 40 pages of descriptive 

 letterpress to which is affixed a plate with 32 figures engraved 

 in copper. The introductory pages contain such dedications to 

 higli personages as were custoniary in those times with one to the 

 father of Fougt, and a preface on the scope of the paper. The 

 first fourteen pages treat of the nature of corals in general and 

 of the opinions of older authors as well as the discoveries of 

 Réaumur and Jussieu. The rest of the treatise is devoted to 

 the description of the species. The plate contains two sets of 

 figures, one numbered from i to xxvii, and the other nunibered 

 from 1 to 5, the latter set in outline, to show more distinctly 

 the buds and nianner of growth. They are all drawn by FouGT 

 somewhat roughly, but still many of them well enough to re- 

 present the essential features. 



Owing to a too slight knowledge of the manner in which 

 such »dissertations» were published at the Swedish universities 

 and no doubt because the name of Fougt is printed on the 

 title page he has been credited with the authorship. • Now, in 

 fa et, at least since 1602, the custom had been at Swedish uni- 

 versities and I suppose also at the German ones, on which ours 

 were modelled, that the young students who aimed at taking a 

 degree in any of the four faculties were obliged to appear as 

 »Respondens) at a public wrangling (»disputation») över which 

 a professor presided — was Prseses, as it was said — and both 

 had to defend the contents of a scientific paper, called disser- 

 tatio, which had previously been printed and published at the 

 cost of the respondens and had on its title page the names of 

 both. As a rule the presiding professor was the author of the 

 dissertation. It was in those times the cheapest and almost the 

 only way for learned men to get their works published, as the 

 cost of the printing etc. was defrayed by the respondents. Now 

 it is of course in several instances raost difficult to decide, which 

 of the two was the real author. It is evident that a treatise 



