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Lichenes of New England. 453 
Schools, to perceive the defects of the Systems. 
These defects may be apparent enough to us, though 
as yet our knowledge may be limited to the truth 
which our system has taught us, and we may never 
have been out to learn of Her who knows nothing of 
paradoxes and half-truths, who is silent and works 
without words. 1 cannot think that the remark of 
Sir James Smith, himself one of the most illustrious 
of systematists, — that the arrangements of Acharius 
“will most likely form the foundation of all. that 
can in future be done on the subject," will not re- 
quire to be greatly qualified. 'The arduous labors of 
the continental lichenists have not been in vain, and 
that these labors will be of account, in all attempts at 
reaching the true natural arrangement of the Li- 
chenes, can hardly be doubted. And such works as 
Sir William Hooker's, on British lichens, though it 
be still of the school of Acharius, and perhaps sug- 
gests more changes than it makes, may well be men- 
tioned in proof of this. Still the “ Methodus” is a 
work, which no student of these plants ean use 
without becoming attached to it. 'T'he style is sim- 
ple, and there are places which may even be called 
Linnean, and there is very little Greek-Latin. Some 
of the generic names have been noticed by natural- 
ists for their beauty. And the observations on the 
Species, so much shortened in the. succeeding works 
of our author, abound with matter of usefulness to 
the lichenist. There are three main divisions of 
this work, under which the species are arranged in 
twenty-three genera. The genus Lecidea is separat- 
ed from the Lecanore, which last, with a number 
VOL. III. — NO. IV. 58 
