306 
have made considerable progress in the 
putting into accessible and useful order 
the rich materials the Museum already 
possesses, and the administration generally 
is making considerable exertions towards 
increasing the collections. Their plan is 
to have a general herbarium, as complete 
in species, and in habitats as possible, and 
besides that, to have separate geographical 
herbaria. What duplicates may remain, 
are reserved for the purpose of making ex- 
changes. M. de Jussieu, by an active 
correspondence with collectors, as well as 
by a tour he made last year, in the south- 
ern departments, has succeeded in forming 
a very rich and complete French herbarium 
—a matter certainly of the first importance 
in a national collection. The additions to 
the general herbarium are not so great as 
might have been, had the fund at the dis- 
posal of the Museum been more consider- 
able; yet very important ones have lately 
been made, amongst which you are already 
acquainted with Jacquemont’s Cashmire 
and Himalayan collection, and much is 
expected from Le Prieur’s Guiana expe- 
dition. The latter collector was formerly 
with Perrottet, in ZEquinoctial Africa, and 
has since been sent out by the Parisian 
Geographical Society, to French Guyana, 
to explore the affluents of the Oyapook, on 
a mission, and with means, very similar 
to those entrusted to Schomburgk by us. 
With regard to Botany, he is to send his 
specimens to the Museum and to M. De- 
lessert. Some have been already received, 
many of them valuable species, but mostly 
not so well dried as might have been wished. 
Unfortunately his health is impaired so 
much as to give serious fears that he will 
sed unable to fulfil all the objects of his 
sion 
cmm Benjamin Delessert continues, and 
indeed has lately much increased, the en- 
ment he gives to Botany, and to 
Ninos collectors. . Besides subscribing 
to all English and German expeditions, 
which appear deserving of encouragement, 
"s zealously promotes several French un- 
dertakings of the same nature. Perrottet, 
who was with Le Prieur, i in Senegambi 
BOTANICAL INFORMATION, 
ia, with him M. Auber, who, during à | 
has been appointed to the situation of Di- 
years ago, returned to this country; but 
as this Botanical Garden can scarcely be 
said to exist, Perrottet is earning his  — 
salary by plantations, and other improve- 
ments of the kind about the town, and by. 
botanical excursions in the surrounding 
country, from whence he has already trans- 
mitted to Baron Delessert, a considerable 
collection, richer in the number and quality. 
of its specimens, than in any novelty of 
species, which are, of course, the same as. 
those we usually receive from the Coro- 
mandel Coast. í A 
M. Picard, a young man who has already. E 
made some good collections in the South 
of Spain and other parts of the Mediter- — 
ranean, is about to sail for Gabon, on the - 
Coast of Senegambia, from whence he will 
transmit to Delessert the dried plants he 
may collect. Er 
M. Adolphe Delessert, a nephew of the- 
Baron, accompanied Perrottet to Pondi- © 
chery, and from thence has made a voyage | 
to Singapore, Penang, Batavia and Borneo, — | 
and on his return to Madras has trans- 
mitted, besides a large quantity of birds, 
(Zoology being his special pursuit,) se- 
veral plants which he collected for his 
M. B. Delessert himself is conhada 
his Icones Selectæ; several of the plates of 
the third volume, engraved by Plee, 
the immediate superintendence and editor- 
ship of Guillemin, are already finished and 
the work is now rapidly proceeding with. 
M. Adolphe Gay is actively co ollecting 
in South Chili, chiefly in Valdivia. 
M. Coquebert de Montbret, a pes 
the traveller of the same name, W 
in the Egyptian expedition, has es re- 
turned from a most interesting jOUrne. 
He went from Constantinople over 
Bithynian Olympus, and across the chain 
of the Taurus to Aleppo; thence up the Eu- 
phrates nearly to its source, and aci 
Trebizonde, from whence, nearly by 
same route, he returned to Aleppo- 
