HISTORY OF BOTANY. 
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far a favorite idea ; endowed with a brilliant imagination, he 
was at times somewhat blinded by the beauty of his own con- 
ceptions, and strove to reconcile nature to the visions of his 
own fancy. 
We have, in our investigations of the artificial system occa- 
sionally pointed out in it some imperfections, particularly in the 
separation of natural families; but no means of remedying 
these have yet been found, and we still, after the lapse of near 
a century, with the exception of a few alterations, receive this 
system as left by its author. 
Linnaeus died in 1778; ten years afterwards a society of nat- 
uralists, distinguished by his name, was founded in London ; 
this society is now in possession of his library, herbariums, 
collections of insects and shells, with numerous manuscripts. 
Sir James Edward Smith was the founder of this society, and 
its first and only president until his death, which has recently 
occurred. He translated the writings of Linnaeus, (which were 
originally in Latin,) and illustrated them by his own comments ; 
no one, perhaps, has done more towards rendering botanical 
science accessible to all classes of people than this elegant writer. 
The study of plants, after the discoveries and classifications of 
Linnams, became, in a degree, general. The knowledge of veg- 
etable physiology began to be usefully applied to agriculture. 
Duhamel of France very successfully laboured to exhibit the 
connexion between the science of botany and the cultivation of 
plants. Bossuet of Geneva proved by experiments that the 
vascular system of plants is tubular and transparent ; and that 
leaves perform the office of respiration. 
Grew of England ascertained the existence of the cambium, 
and Duhamel afterwards proved that it was distinct from the 
sap and proper juices. The latter opposed the idea till then en- 
tertained, that earth and water were the only food of plants ; he 
proved that the various solids and fluids diffused in the soil and 
atmosphere, are all important to vegetation. 
The observations of Priestly, Saussure, and others, aided by 
the discoveries made in pneumatic chemistry, of the existence 
of oxygen, hydrogen, and carbonic acid gases, formed a new 
era in the history of vegetable physiology. It was proved that 
vegetables do ultimately consist of oxygen, hydrogen, and car- 
bon, and sometimes of a small quantity of nitrogen, combined 
with mineral salts, and often some silex, sulphur, and iron, 
which seem important to vegetable life. These elemetarv sub- 
stances were found to be diffused through the air and watei, and 
the animal and vegetable substances which the latter holds in 
Linnaean Society in London. 
