many of our plants into the English gardens and who was the intimate friend of Walter. Before leaving the botanical works printed in the eighteenth century, we ought to mention some remarks on the most useful vegetables of the United States, forming a very considerable part of the Travels of Luigi Castiglioni, a gentleman of Milan, who passed nearly three years in this country between 1785 and 1787, and published a reputable account of his observations upon his return to Italy. We come now to speak of the two Michaux, whose botanical skill and industry entitle them to a distinguished place in our consideration. André Michaux, the elder, of whom there is a biographical account written by Deleuze in the Annals of the Museum, was one of those eminent men, whom the munificence of the kings of France enabled to make researches in foreign countries for the illustration of natural history. Having acquired distinction by his travels in Persia and other parts of Western Asia, Michaux was sent to the United States by Lewis XVI, in 1785 not long before the revolution deprived this monarch of his throne and life, for the purpose of collecting seeds, roots, and specimens of plants. After the dissolution of the monarchy, the republic, which in this instance did not adhere to the love of science she always affected to entertain, neglected to continue his appointments to Michaux; but, with the salary he received before and his patrimonial fortune after the death of the king, he enjoyed sufficient means of pursuing botanical inquiries during the time he remained in this country. In 1801, being returned to Paris, he published his History of the Oaks of America, immediately upon which he embraced an opportunity, which offered itself, for making a voyage to Australasia, leaving to his son the charge of editing his Flora Boreali-Americana. The next year he fell a victim to his zeal for knowledge, dying of a fever whilst engaged in philosophical investigations on the coast of Madagascar. The History of the Oaks of America contains an account of twenty species of the genus Quercus, describing their botanical structure, mode of culture and economical uses, with very complete engravings by P. J. Redouté, so well known to botanists by his sumptuous delineations of the Liliaceous Plants and Roses. This History of our Oaks is the more to be depended on, as Michaux cultivated all the species himself, and observed them carefully in every stage of their growth servation, Dur manuscripts le upon or entire a more highly tions. It was fi with superb cold doute, Bessa, R has been transla Mr Hillhouse European Olive Tr from which we ext the olive in Americ of the two Floridas as an obstacle to th of their growth. For want of similar opportunities of local observation, Duroi, in his work on the trees at Harbke, fell into many mistakes, describing as distinct species, what were only varieties of the same plants at different ages of its growth. The Flora Boreali-Americana, written wholly in Latin, came before the world in 1803, under the superintendence of the younger Michaux. The work was not prepared for the press by the father, but contains no plant which he did not examine in its native soil, and, in its present form, is extracted from manuscripts left by him, the specific descriptions only being often abridged and generic characters added from Murray. Interspersed in the Flora are fifty-one plates, on a smaller scale than those of the Oaks of America, but designed, like them, by P. J. Redouté, and engraved with great neatness and beauty. Finally, if there is any thing in this elegant publication to regret, it is only that it was posthumous for had the author fortunately lived to publish it himself, he would, no doubt, have enriched it, as he did his History of the Oaks, with a copious list of synonymes, and with popular remarks on the habit, period of growth, qualities and appearance of the several plants, all which particulars are but slightly touched upon or entirely omitted in the Flora. André Michaux the younger is celebrated, in the same department of science, for his History of the Forest Trees of North America, than which we believe no country can boast a more highly useful account of any part of its natural productions. It was first published between the years 1810 and 1813, with superb colored figures designed by P. J. Redouté, H.J. Redouté, Bessa, Riché and other respectable artists. Since then it has been translated into English by Mr A. L. Hillhouse,* from • Mr Hillhouse has published, in a separate form, a Description of the European Olive Tree, originally written for his translation of Michaux, from which we extract the following passage relative to the cultivation of the olive in America, as deserving particular notice since our acquisition of the two Floridas. After adverting to the capriciousness of our climate as an obstacle to the introduction of delicate foreign plants, he proceeds to say: 'But, with all these disadvantages, tracts uniting the conditions necessary for the growth of the olive may probably be found sufficiently extensive for our wants. The possibility of its flourishing on our shores has been demonstrated by at least one experiment. While the Floridas were held by the English, an adventurer of that nation led a colony of Greeks into the eastern province, and founded the settlement of New Smyrna. The principal treasure which they brought from their native clime was the olive. Bartram, who visited this settlement in 1775, describes it as a flourishing town : its prosperity, however, was of momentary a French copy corrected and newly arranged by the author, the figures in the translation being printed upon plates the same with the original, but now somewhat worn, and therefore not affording copies equally elegant with those of the first impres sion. Michaux collected the materials for his work in the course of two voyages to America, concerning the first of which he published a volume, which contains some valuable ints spread out over a considerable surface. It is the plan of his History of our Forest-Trees to unite the advantages of a work strictly botanical and of one relating to the useful arts, out especially to collect all the scattered details, which books or experience could furnish him, with respect to the applicaion of the various kinds of wood to the purposes of life. Boanical descriptions can easily be made or found; but, in order to ascertain their useful properties, it was necessary to consult artisans in almost every branch of practical mechanics, o frequent the dock-yards or work-shops, in which wood was employed, and in short to gather information from every attainable source. From these inquiries Michaux has obtained a most extensive collection of curious and important facts, which, although rather belonging to the application of botany han to botany itself, are nevertheless essential to the complete Knowledge of the plants of the United States. For, beside the commercial and practical uses of our trees, we have a very perfect account of the inflorescence, fructification, growth and botanical habit of them individually considered, as also many nteresting facts with regard to them taken together as composing forests. With respect to the nomenclature of this work uration: driven to despair by hardship and oppression, and precluded rom escape by land, where they were intercepted by the wandering savges, a part of these unhappy exiles conceived the hardy enterprise of ying to the Havanna in an open boat; the rest removed to St Augustine when the Spaniards resumed possession of the country. In 1783, a few decaying huts and several large olives were the only remaining traces of heir industry.' 'Louisiana, the Floridas, the islands of Georgia and chosen exposures n the interior of the state, will be the scene of this culture. Perhaps it will be extended to some parts of the Western States: it has been hastily oncluded that the olive can exist only in the vicinity of the sea; it has een found in the centre of Spain, and in Mesopotamia at the distance of hundred leagues from the shore. The trial should be made in every lace where its failure is not certain, and for this purpose young grafted rees should be obtained from Europe, and the formation of nurseries rom the seed immediately begun.' Description of the European Olive Trec, pp. 39, 40. The Greek colony above alluded to is the same spoken f in the preceding article of this number, p. 97. See also Bartram's Trav Js, p. 142. it may be o of natural histo are his Collect ledge of the pla attention to a su ed among us, a it may be observed, that Michaux has been charged with making needless innovations in long established names, sometimes without any intimation of the change. But the great accuracy of its beautiful figures, at the same time that it serves to correct any misunderstanding that might arise from occasional confusion in the specific names, gives this History of our Forest Trees a permanent value in technical botany. We have now reached the period, when two American botanists flourished, of whom every person, whether native or foreigner, who has had any connexion with our botany, always speaks in the highest terms of gratitude. We refer to Dr Muhlenberg and Dr Barton. Benjamin Smith Barton, born at Lancaster in 1766, after going through the customary medical education at home and abroad, in 1789, was made professor of natural history, a science for which he had always entertained a marked predilection, in the college of Philadelphia. His appointment was confirmed on the institution of the university of Pennsylvania, where his reputation as a naturalist soon procured his election as professor of the materia medica, and where his medical character afterwards led to his being made professor of the practice of physic, in which station he died in 1815, having continued to perform the duties of a medical instructer with great applause until a few months before his death. He published several botanical works in addition to his tracts on medicine, zoology and the antiquities of America. The most important of these works, in the present connexion, are his Collections for an Essay towards a Materia Medica of the United States and his Elements of Botany. The Collections were published in parts at different periods between 1789 and 1810, but, unfinished as he left them, they are not reputed to have made very important additions to our knowledge of the plants of America. Nothing of any value had yet appeared on our vegetable materia medica excepting a short paper on Canadian Specifics, written in 1756, by a Swede named John von Colln, and preserved in the Amoenitates Academicæ, and a small work by John David Schopf, a physician attached to the German troops in America during the war, published at Erlangen, in the present kingdom of Würtemberg, in 1787, and slightly commended in Sprengel's History of Botany. The Collections, therefore, as inviting the public attention to a subject, which had not been adequately regarded among us, and as leading to the publication of many valu ble papers on our medical botany, deserve to be mentioned with respect. The Elements of Botany, first published in 803, and reprinted in 1812 and 1814, contain much ingenous speculation and curious learning intermixed with no little ffectation, as, for instance, in the supercilious language with which the author continually alludes to Linnæus. In the light of an elementary treatise the work must yield to many others, o Smith, to Sprengel and to De Candolle. Still it derives a beculiar attraction, in the view of Americans, from the circumtance, that it brings our own plants into notice by frequent eference to them, and by means of its colored figures, which Barton was very solicitous to have faithfully executed. In all he scientific writings of this author, however, a diffuse inelegant style and an immethodical arrangement, into which the urry of his professional pursuits betrayed him, are too remarkable to pass unnoticed, especially as he published almost nothng but incomplete tracts, whose faultiness their very title of ragments, collections and the like sufficiently indicates. We upprehend, therefore, his botanical fame is built most surely on the gratitude of those naturalists, who were aided by his iberality in making the researches, which his public duties vithheld him from undertaking in person. Among these, Pursh and Nuttall, who will be mentioned hereafter, were peculiarly ndebted to Dr Barton, and their writings afford the amplest llustration of his genuine love of science. Contemporary with Barton, of the same State and engaged in ike scientific pursuits, was Dr Henry Muhlenberg, minister of Lancaster, distinguished as president of the Lutheran church of Pennsylvania, but still better known as the first botanist of his ime in America. Although he had long been in habits of ntimate correspondence with naturalists of eminence in Eucope, by whom he was highly respected for the zeal and acuteness manifested in his communications, the first work, that he personally gave the public, was a Catalogue of the Plants of North America, in 1813. This Catalogue, compiled almost entirely from living plants or dried specimens in the Herbarium of the author, briefly exhibited the scientific and vulgar name, the calyx, the corolla and the time of flowering, with the locality, of a much larger number of plants than were previously known to belong to the United States, but was intended only as a kind of Prodromus of a full Description, which he had already written many years before, of the plants of Lancaster and his rich Herba the Plants of I account of an confessed he h which respect tions to Muhle uscripts will e although his w edly announce lins. The ca lenberg's son always freely remarkable pla tions of them, more widely e dents, than the of his works in terested in his that his living were always at thought of inter acquainted with most valuable works now in purchased after erously present In noticing I Pursh, author eric Pursh is early part of hi He was educate New Series, sa |