58 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



most expensive public voyages to America was made by Don Francis 

 Hernandez, a Spaniard, first physician to Philip II. King of Spain. 

 The objeft of this voyage was a physico-natural exploration and de- 

 scription of MexicOi on which the Spanish government bestowed 6o,ooo 

 ducats. The result of this voyage was not published till some time in the 

 seventeenth century*. 



Among the learned of the different nations, the Germans also dis- 

 tinguished themselves by travels undertaken for the improvement of 

 natural knowledge. Among others, Leonard Rauwolf, a native 



Augsburg, who died as physician to the army in the Austrian ser- 

 vice, in 15965 became eminent as a diligent observer on his travels in 

 Asia, and the Eastern countries of Europe, from 1573 1 till 1588. 



They were likewise Germans, who conceived the useful idea of ren- 

 dering the curiosities of nature, and the indigenous plants of certain 

 provinces, the exclusive objeft of their attention, and to describe them 

 in separate colleftions. The first who set an example in this respeft, 

 was George Fabricius, the Saxon historian, who died in the year 

 1571. In his historical description of Misnia'^, he gave a short cata- 

 logue of the indigenous plants and animals of that province. But this 

 was only one single good idea of a secondary plan. The first regular 



*, Franz. Ximenes 4 libros della Naturaleza y Virtudes de las plantas y animales, que 

 esfam recevidos en el uso de Medecina en la Nucva Espanna, &c. &c. con lo que el Dr. 

 Hernandez escriyio en lengua latina, Mexico, 1615, quarto — ^The whole works of Her- 

 MANDES were afterwards published under the title: Plantarum, animalium, mineralium 

 Mexicaniorum historia, Romte, 1651, folio, with 800 cuts. 



+ Description of his travels through the East, especially Syria, &c. in German, 1583, 

 four parts in quarto.— His dried coUeftion of , plants was afterwards published by the Dutch 

 fiotanist J. T. Gronov, under the title of " Rauwolfii Flora Orientalis, Lejden, 1755. 

 oftavp. . 



X Rerum Misnicarum, lib. vii. Lifz. 1569 and 1660, quaitc^. 



I and 



