LATE JAMES LEE. 



vii 



System on this important discovery, Tournefort 

 also flourished before the period of Linnaeus, and his 

 fame in 1683, procured him the appointment of 

 Botanic Professor in the King's Garden. At the ex- 

 pense of the King of France, in pursuit of plants, he 

 travelled over all the countries of Europe, and spent 

 three years in the Levant. His glory is, to have 

 formed a System, beautiful in itself, but suited to a 

 limited knowledge of plants, which could then be 

 accommodated to such a system ; and to have in- 

 vented the method of forming plants into their re- 

 spective Genera, since perfected by Linnaeus. His 

 "Elements of Botany' evince a vast knowledge of the 

 genera and the species of plants, and this botanical 

 work is one of which the French are, even to the 

 present day, passionately fond. He rose to be Pre- 

 sident of the head of the faculty at Paris. This illu- 

 strious botanist was born in 1656, and died in 1707, 

 the same year that Linnaeus came into the world. 



Ray was the contemporary of Tournefort, some- 

 what prior, being born in 1628, and from his studies 

 at Cambridge, his health declined, and he was 

 obliged, for its recovery, to go much in the fields. In 

 these excursions, plants naturally presented them- 

 selves, and he hence became enamoured of the science 

 of Botany. He first published a " Catalogue of the. 

 Plants growing about Cambridge.'" Travelling 

 abroad, his vast mind collected a knowledge of various 



