OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHANGES OF SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 297 
main-top was forced through the poop-deck,, and nearly killed an 
officer who was nearly under the place. The whole of this catastrophe 
happened in little more than half an hour, and from the state of a tower¬ 
ing well-found ship, was reduced to an unmanageable but still sound 
hulk, covered with wreck. 
Some of our readers may ask, perhaps, why we have given so long a 
detail of this unlooked-for accident to the ship, as having nothing to do 
with the transportation of plants; but they will be able to assign a 
reason, and we hope an excuse, for the account, when we inform them, 
that on visiting our plants at daybreak next morning, we found the 
platform and all the boxes, with what remained of the plants, more or 
less crushed under the weight of the main and mizzen masts, both of 
which fell directly along the platform, and pressed the whole close to 
the deck. 
At daylight we found ourselves directly off Plymouth, and in the 
midst of the grand fleet under Lord Howe. Several other Indiamen, 
as well as King’s ships, disabled like ourselves, were near; but the 
greater part of our old companions had passed up the channel. Lord 
Howe, after hailing us and learning the particulars of our disaster, 
ordered us to be towed into Torbay by the Venerable seventy-four, 
Captain Sir John Ord, to which place the whole of the grand fleet 
and disabled Indiamen returned, and anchored on the evening of the 
same day. 
rj _ 
(To be continued .) 
r 
Observations on the Changes of Systematic Botany.— 
It is generally known that systematic botany has been for a good many 
years past in what may be called a state of revolution. The great 
change introduced by the elder Jussieu, in departing so completely 
from the sexual system of Linnaeus, has disturbed the minds, and un¬ 
settled the early-acquired ideas, of most botanists; and although the 
scheme and principle of Jussieu has been readily and pretty generally 
adopted by a very great majority of the highest class of scientific men, 
yet, as the labours of that eminent man were not, nor possibly could 
be complete, his talented disciples are every day adding what he has 
omitted, replacing what has been misplaced, and defining and deter¬ 
minating what he has left undetermined. It is also obvious that, in 
this business of amending the Jussieuan system, botanists of equal 
abilities and powers of discrimination, do not always agree in opinion— 
not only as to the true generic character of the same plant, but differ 
materially respecting the natural order to which it really belongs. 
Whether these differences arise from any defect in the system itself, 
VOL. V. —NO. LXII. QQ 
