LEWIS D. VON SCHWE1NITZ. 
27 
had to lament that their remoteness from the richer 
treasures of scientific truth, the vast libraries of metro¬ 
politan cities, did not allow them to consult the produc¬ 
tions of Bulliard, Sowerby, Bolton, Shaeffer, Mitchel, . 
Batseh, and others. At a subsequent period, when 
treating of the fungi of America, Mr. Schweinitz was 
enabled to profit by the contemporary labours of those 
whom he is pleased to term the coryphaei of mycological 
science, such as Fries, Nees, Link and Kunz, and he then 
takes occasion to remark, that aH the genera described 
by them are likewise found in America, and that indeed 
but few species are known in Europe, (except those 
parasitic fungi which belong to a matrix not here pro¬ 
duced,) but what are equally the products of both con¬ 
tinents. This seemed conclusively to refute the notion 
that fungous forms are the mere fortuitous generation of 
accidental causes, and incapable of definite classifica¬ 
tion. 
It is not, perhaps, among the least interesting and 
creditable circumstance connected with the publication 
of this work, that the twelve plates containing figures of 
ninety-three new species of fungi were drawn, en¬ 
graved, and coloured by the hands of Mr. Schw r einitz 
himself. We are assured, by one who was at that pe¬ 
riod his pupil, that he “recollects the untiring research 
with which our departed friend, amidst the various ar¬ 
duous duties of his office, (that of tutor at Niesky,) pur¬ 
sued his favourite study, and the labour bestowed by his 
own hands on the coloured plates of the well known 
(( Synopsis Fungorum.” The modesty with which the 
