308 Robert Brown. 



shortly appointed Librarian to the Linnean Society. Here he 

 quietly examined his plants, and evolved with philosophic caution 

 and patience those views which were destined to produce so ex- 

 tensive and lasting an impression on science. One of his earliest 

 papers was published in the Transactions of the Wernerian Socie- 

 ty of Edinburgh, and was devoted to the family of plants called 

 by Mm " Asclepiadse." In this paper the character of mind of the 

 author is well seen. The microscope had been used, the process 

 of the development had been watched, anew series of facts import- 

 ant to the laws of reproduction had been discovered, and a new 

 order of plants established. Such was the nature of most of his 

 future communications to the Linnean and Royal Societies. Such 

 was the character of his great work on the plants of New Holland? 

 which he published in the year 1810, with the title ' Prodromus 

 Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen.' This work con- 

 tained not only a description of the plants which he had himself 

 collected in Australia, but also those collected by Sir Joseph 

 Banks during Cook's first voyage; This book abounded in new 

 facts and new orders. It was published as a first volume, but it 

 was never succeeded by a second, as appeared to have been 

 originally intended by the author. At the time this work was 

 published, it was the practice of English botanists to arrange plants 

 according to the artificial method of Linnaeus, and Brown's 'Pro- 

 dromus' was the first English work devoted to a scientific and ra- 

 tional classification of plants. Although the Linnean system of 

 .classification survived some time after the publication of this work, 

 it eventually succumbed before those principles of arrangement 

 which were carried out in so masterly a manner by Brown, and 

 the importance which had been recognized by John Bay and 

 Adamson, and even by Linnaeus himself. 



In 1814 Capt. Flinders published a narrative of his voyage, and 

 to this was attached an appendix by Brown, entitled ' General re- 

 marks, Geographical and Systematical, on the Botany of Terra 

 Australis.' In subsequent years several important papers appeared 

 in the Transactions of the Linnean Society. Amongst others 

 may be named, ' On the Natural Order of Plants called Proteacae,' 

 — ' Observations on the Natural Family of Plants called Compo- 

 sitse' (Vol. xii.), — 'An account of a New Genus of Plants called 

 Rafflesia' (Vol. xiii.) In 1828 he published in a separate form 

 ' A Brief Account of Microscopical Observations on the Particles 

 contained in the Pollen of Plants, and on the general existence o^ 



