scientific botanist. The two Forsters, though Ferns appear to have less engrossed their attention than other vegetables, found nearly two hundred species of them on the islands of the South Sea. From the Moluccas and the isles of Sunda we find some Ferns in the work of Rumpf and Rheede, but unquestionably many remain perfectly unknown to European botanists. And that a vast treasure of these plants still awaits the collector at Madagascar, may be easily guessed by those who are acquainted with the climate of that fertile island.

'On casting a view over our northern regions, we find that Sweden affords only twenty-seven species. Of Germany the catalogue is rather richer, the number of its Ferns amounting to nearly forty species. England, on the other hand, on account of its more temperate climate, can boast of a sar greater number. Thus the Number of Ferns appears to increase in proportion to the greater warmth and humidity of the countries.

• In Siberia and other great continents of Asia, Africa and America, the number of Ferns is proportionally small. Michaux, in his extensive tour from Florida to Hudson's Bay, found only between forty and fifty species. They are rather more plentiful in the streights of Panama and in Guiana, where considerable heat and moisture combine to favour their growth.

The Ferns, therefore, next to the Palms, are the tenderest fosterlings of nature, and stand the most in need of her parental care; being seen to thrive only in countries particularly favoured by Flora. "

• We find the same care shown in determining their places of growth. By far the greater part of Ferns are met with in moist spots; out of which they will not thrive. Almost the sole exceptions are, Aspidium Filix mas and Pteris aquilina; both of these not only thrive in any soil, but are found in abundance on the most arid heaths.

In all tropical islands the Ferns occur only in shady woods, and on the borders of brooks and springs; Asplenium obtusifolium is, indeed, found in the midst of the clear fountains and springs of Martinico. The only exceptions to this are, Acrostichum furcatum, and Adiantum aculeatum. The tropical Ferns, moreover, are partial to the trunks of old trees covered with moss, which they climb up and completely overspread, leaving no appearance of their roots; or they are suspended from the branches in the same manner as Parmelia jubata is in our thick forests.' p. 20-25.

In their places of growth, and for geographical extent, the MOSSES are very remarkable; for although, like the Ferns, most partial to shady and moist places, they are found to thrive also in very different kinds of soil, and even exposed to the intense heat of the sun in arid situations.

The mosses grow most luxuriantly in morasses, especially in such as are surrounded by trees; in the northern countries these are quite replete with different species of moss, which grow still more luxuriantly if the soil contain iron-ochre or marcasite. These morasses seldom dry up entirely in summer, and are rarely frozen in winter, owing to their being covered with deep snow, and to the higher temperature caused by the sulphur and asphaltum. Such soil furnishes turf and peat, a material for fuel which occurs only in northern climates and in alpine tracts. In Sweden, and also in Canada, Germany, and Siberia, such peat, or turf-bogs are replete with Sphagnum obtusifolium and aculifolium; indeed they are almost en tirely formed by these two mosses. VOL. VIII. 2 X

Even the rivers, brooks and springs are favourite residences of several mosses. All the species of Fontinalis occur in the clear waters of rivers, and wells; Fontinalis antipyretica is particularly partial to the proximity of waterfalls it strikes its roots on the stones washed by the fall, and the vigour of its vegetation appears to be proportionate to the violence with which the waters break around it. Other species, grow exclusively in watery situations, or where they are exposed to be inundated.

• It is a circumstance sufficiently well known, that innumerable mosses inhabit the stems and branches of old trees, and that the species of Orthotrichum, Neckera, Leskea. Hypnum, and some others, particularly delight in these situations, and may therefore be termed parasitical. Here, too, the Lichens prepare the mould necessary for the vegetation of mosses.

Mosses are contented with a much lower temperature and rougher climates than most other vegetables. The periods of their most vigorous growth and propagation are the autumn and spring; we, therefore, find them in far greater abundance and vigour in alpine regions, which favour their growth too by the humidity continually precipitated from the air, and by the thin layer of light mould they afford them. In Germany and Switzerland the steep rocks of the alps are clothed by mosses from the height of 3000 to 5500 feet: but at this last elevation they cease, either from the eternal snow, or that the rocks are too naked to afford them nourishment.

In the polar countries where the soil never thaws more than for the depth of four inches, Mosses and Lichens are the only vegetable inhabi tants. The northern border of Siberia towards the coast of that sea.is, for the width of some hundred versts, an immensely extended morass, destitute of trees, where, in the middle of summer, the thaw never penetrates more than a span deep: here the whole soil is covered by mosses, which thrive although their roots are only just above the eternal crust of ice, on which, even in summer, you can travel in sledges drawn by reindeer, as far as the coast of the Icy Sea. In Spitzbergen, according to Martens, the rocks of schistus, rising out of the everlasting masses of ice are thickly closed with mosses. In Greenland they constitute the most numerous class of vegetables.

• The northernmost Lapmarks of Sweden and Norway are the true native country of the mosses, The circumstances are similar in North America; the higher up to the north, the greater number of mosses is to be found. According to Michaux, in Florida and Carolina there are few, in Pensylvania more, and most of all in the swamps and forests from Canada to Hudson's Bay,

In the southern hemisphere also the mosses particularly extend to wards the pole. There are only fourteen species enumerated in Thunberg's Flora Japponica, and all of these, with the exception of two are common in Europe. But in Patagonia and Terra del Fuego almost the whole of the swampy soil is covered by mosses: it is therefore a matter of regret that Forster, who speaks in high terms of the abundance of mosses in Terra del Fuego, interested himself so little about them, and collected so few.

Though the colder climates are particularly favourable to the mosses, yet they are known to thrive even between the tropics, provided they find a proper place of growth on alps or in shady swamps. What a rich booty in mosses fell under the observation of the excellent Swartz during his

stay in Jamaica and other West India islands! What a number of new species were brought by Commerson from the Mascarenhas; and by Sonnerat from Madagascar! We have therefore ground to conjecture that even in Africa, which has hitherto furnished us with the smallest number of Mosses, an incalculable host of new species may perhaps be concealed from the eye of the botanist, on those alps which are supposed to exist beneath the equator, and are laid down in our present maps under the appellation of the Mountains of the Moon. pp. 224-232.

The LICHENS abound in every part of the world the most barren -rocks in the northern-most regions and the vicinity of glaciers where eternal ice prevails, are inhabited by these wonderful vegetables; and the barest and hardest masses of granite and porphyry receive from them the first rudiments of vegetation. Braving the inclemencies of every climate and season, Lichens are the never-failing companions of the travelling botanist; in the most elevated, cold, and inhospitable alpine and polar regions, these desert him last; even on the loftiest mountains of the temperate regions, on the verge of eternal snow, the eye of the botanist is still soothed by the brilliant Peltidea crocea, and in the North, by the beautiful Peltidea polaris, Parmelia chlorophana, Lecidea, Wahlenbergii. There are even a considerable number of Lichens that seem to thrive the most vigorously on the loftiest alps! their more simple, halforganized, structure resisting the intense cold, occasioned by the adjoining perpetual ice, which is sufficient to destroy all vitality in the more perfectly organized beings.

The primitive mountains, the fundamental pillars as it were of our globe, have proper Lichens that cover the barren surface of their masses of porphyry and granite.

Calcareous rocks, and old walls coated with lime, are inhabited by Parmelia saxicola, &c.

Our breccias and rocks of quartz are covered with Lecidea athroocarpa, &c. Lichens particularly abound on such soils as are unfavourable to other vegetation. Most species of Bæomyses grow on arid heaths; Peltidea venosa, Parmelia limosa and subtilis, on mud; Lecidea miscella, &c. on moist coarse clay.

Mosses beginning to decay afford a habitation particularly suited to Lichens, where they form incrustations in such a manner, as to exhibit a sort of firm stony rind surrounding their stalks. In such situations we find, among others, the gelatinous Parmelia. One Lichen grows even on a species of Jungermannia, viz. Lecidea Jungermanniæ, and some are also parasitical on other Lichens.

But the habitation the most congenial to Lichens is the bark of trees, and they are not unfrequently seen to partake of the qualities of that part. The youngest and smoothest barks are occupied by Opegrapha; while the larger Farmelia are usually found only on the rugged and cracked bark of old trees, and on decayed wood.

Many Lichens take up their abode under water, on the surface of stones; even in mines under ground, Humboldt discovered several species, comprehended by Roth under the name of Rhizomorpha.

In this manner are the Lichens dispersed all over the face of the

globe. Placed almost on the lowest degree of organization, they often require nothing for their conservation but the moisture of the atmosphere, precipitated on the naked masses of rock. But on these rocks, by their decay, they form a stratum of mould, favourable to the growth of the more highly organised Mosses and Jungermannias. Scarcely is there a tree found in the torrid as well as the frigid zone, that is not, at some period of its existence, covered by Lichens; for, unconfined to any particular climate or degree of latitude, wherever there occur mould, stones, rocks, or trees, Lichens are sure to be found.

These plants merit the attention which has of late been bestowed upon them, if in no other respect, yet certainly on account of the various conomical uses to which they are applied, such as in dyeing, and even as affording food both for man and beasts.'

The translation, though occasionally negligent, is evidently done by a person acquainted with the subject. The work is well and correctly printed; and the plates neatly executed and carefully coloured. We can give it no higher recommendation than to say, that it is a work deserving a place by the side of Dr. Smith's Introduction to Botany,to which, (though very different in plan), it may be looked upon as a continuation.

Art. X. The Life of the Rev. John Hough, D. D. Successively Bishop of Oxford, Lichfield, and Coventry, and Worcester: formerly President of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford, in the Reign of King James II. Containing many of his Letters, and biographical Notices of several Persons with whom he was connected. By John Wilmot, Esq. F. R. S. and S. A. royal 4to. pp. 387. Price 11. 11s. 6d. Sold by White and Cochrane, Longman and Co., and Cadell and Davies. 1812.

IT may not be easy to decide what is the discreetest course

with respect to the exterior equipment of a biographical work, when the person to be celebrated lived rather a long time since, and, though highly respectable, did not possess that kind of eminence which is to remain visible through all time. In such a case, the principle of fair proportion would seem to recommend a book of very moderate show and presence, a modest duodecimo, or octavo at most, with an ordinary neatness of execution, and a forbearing demand on the purse. The propriety of this will seem to be much enforced by the consideration, that there have been many very great men whose records occupy a very narrow space in books; and it seems a kind of irreverence to the memories of such men that all the amplitude and eclat of literary exhibition, which ought to have been theirs if history had not been so scanty of information concerning them, should

be conferred on those whose importance was at once of much less magnitude and of a more temporary nature. If there are not materials for constructing superb monuments to many of those greater men, the space at least ought to be left which those monuments should have occupied and not filled up by disproportioned and pompous ones of their inferiors. If what was once a majestic oak, is now reduced to a branchless mouldering trunk, it would be a kind of injustice in taste to let comparatively ordinary trees encroach so close around it as to overspread it.

We were going, on the other hand, to specify reasons why the biographer of a person whose importance was not of the first rate, and is receding fast from our view, may think himself aiming at public utility in an earnest effort to renew the celebrity of such an individual by means of a book, adopted to catch attention by a conspicuous splendour of its exterior. But we shall perhaps better consult our limits, and mind our proper business, by coming directly to the work of Mr. Wilmot, and noticing in the first place the remarkable richness of its typography and engraving. It has in these respects a degree of beauty which will arrest the reader's attention again and again, and not let him grow insensible of it through familiarity.

The Preface, which is not ostentatious, states the sources whence the author, or as he modestly denominates himself, the editor, has derived his materials, and some of the causes of the scantiness of the biographical memoir.

The private, unambitious life which Bishop Hough preferred, and which he enjoyed for many years, was little calculated to afford materials for biography, or to furnish that fund of incident and anecdote which the lives of most public men supply: besides, the length of time which has elapsed since his death, now nearly seventy years, has greatly increased the difficulty of acquiring particulars of his public as well as his private life, and might alone have furnished a sufficient apology for the scanty materials, which the Editor of this work has been able to collect.

⚫ But, in addition to the difficulties occasioned by this distance of time, we have likewise to combat the great modesty of Dr. Hough, and his peculiar unwillingness to have any thing which proceeded from his pen made public. We are informed by a late Antiquarian, who had an opportunity of reading several of his Sermons (which he calls very excellent') that such was the good Bishop's antipathy to the publication of these, or of any other of his writings, even after his decease, that he gave a strict charge to the contrary.'

That is to say, it was the venerable bishop's sincere and deliberate judgment that what he might have written, whether