HISTORY OF BOTANY. 
58 
most expensive public voyages to Americans made by Don Francis 
Hernandez, a Spaniard, first physician to Philip II. King of Spain. 
The objeCt of this voyage was a physico-natural exploration and de- 
scription of Mexico , on which the Spanish government bestowed 60,000 
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 
of Augsburg , who died as physician to the army in the Austrian ser- 
vice, in 1596, became eminent as a diligent observer on his travels in 
Asia, and the Eastern countries of Europe, from 1573+ 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 objeCt of their attention, and to describe them 
in separate collections. The first who set an example in this respeCt, 
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 
estam recevidos en el uso de Medecina en la NuevaEspanna, &c. &c. con lo que el Dr. 
Hernandez escrivio en lengua latina, Mexico, 1615, quarto — The whole works of Hep- 
nandes were afterwards published under the title: Plantarum, animalium, mineraliuna 
Mexicaniorum historia, Ronue, 1653, folio, with 800 cuts. 
+ Description of his travels through the East, especially Syria, See. in German, 15S3, 
four parts in quarto. — His dried colleftion of plants was afterwards published by the Dutch 
Botanist J. T. Gronov, under the title of “ Rauwolfii Flora Orientalis, Leyden , 1755. 
oftavo. 
X Rerum Misnicarum, lib. vii. L'tpz. 1569 and 1660, quarto. 
I 
and 
