PRITZEL'S "INDEX. 



15 



betischer Folge zusammengestellt " (a complete guide to botanic 

 illustrations ; a catalogue of flowering plants and ferns from botanic 

 and garden literature of the 18th and 19th centuries), Berlin, 1855. 

 A spurious second edition, with slightly altered title-page and preface 

 rendered into English, is to be found, though repudiated by the 

 author ; it was probably a trick of his publisher, Nicolai, to sell the 

 remainder of the stock. A thin second volume came out in 1865 

 bringing the references down to 1865, and that is how the matter 

 still stands. 



Mr. Loder thinks that the main work was probably compiled 

 at the same time as his " Thesaurus," but I do not feel quite sure 

 of that ; it is possible that when he had printed his author-list by 

 1849, he may have entered upon the preparation of his second book, 

 especially as the printing of his " Thesaurus " was not very rapid ; 

 still, the actual period of his work on this subject need not detain 

 us. It may be noted that the year when his " Index " was pub- 

 lished, 1855, was marked by his becoming " Archivar " to the Royal 

 Academy of Sciences in Berlin, so that his two important books 

 marked two important steps in his life. A second edition of his 

 " Thesaurus " was taken in hand (presumably after he had com- 

 pleted the supplemental Index of 1866) ; this was altered in plan 

 by omitting many of the entries of gardening books which had their 

 place in the first issue, and naturally by including recent books, 

 those published between 1847 and 1870, with some particulars of 

 the authors, in a very useful fashion. Unhappily he did not live 

 to finish this edition ; the first four parts bringing it down to 

 " Tournefort " were brought out in 1872, when the painful spinal 

 disease from which he had suffered during many years made it 

 impossible for him to continue. He died on June 14, 1874, at 

 Homheim, near Kiel. Dr. C. F. W. Jessen was entrusted with 

 the task of seeing the rest of the manuscript through the press, and 

 of compiling the subject entries ; the final part, comprising three 

 fasciculi in one, came out in 1877. 



Turning now to the volume on which I am called to speak, the 

 names of genera and species are arranged in alphabetic order as 

 printed in the books cited, and as explained by the author in his 

 preface thus : " The compilation of a work, for which there was no 

 prototype extant in botanical literature, was accompanied by many 

 difficulties. The greatest possible completeness was the main 

 essential ; to what extent I have attained this requisite I have been 

 informed by very gratifying testimonials from several monographers. 

 Those whose studies have enabled them to take a comprehensive 

 survey of botanical literature will not be surprised to hear that, 

 in spite of my desire for completeness, I have nevertheless been 

 obliged to reject more than 100,000 delineations as worthless. That 

 amongst this large number there must have been many which would 

 have been useful to some one or other, who would make use of this 

 book for his own special purposes, is as little to be denied as that, 



