collections of shells, fossils, mineral and geological specimens, birds, quadrupeds, &c. compose the cabinet. A great number of the most valuable of the works in this collection, have been bestowed by its munificent benefactor, William Maclure.

In 1817, the Academy commenced the periodical publication of some of the valuable papers read before it. Under the unassuming title of "The Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences," three volumes have appeared, the contents of which are honorable to the scientific men of Philadelphia.' pp. 100, 101.

The little volume, from which these facts are selected, contains a great fund of information respecting the present state of Philadelphia, its municipal regulations, topography, commerce, manufactures, religious institutions, charitable and humane societies, literature, education, courts of judicature, navigation, and innumerable other particulars. The design of the work is good, and although in some of its departments it is exceedingly well executed, in others it is defective. We instance manufactures as a very important subject, which is touched upon but slightly. There is a minute description of the celebrated Water Works on the Schuylkill, which may well be considered the pride of the city, as they might justly be of any city in the world. An extraordinary rhapsody is introduced into the first part of the volume, which makes an odd impression in contrast with the modest historical sketch that precedes it, and harmonises but awkwardly with the sober character of the work.....

The plan of this publication is worthy of being imitated in all our cities. The information thus communicated would be highly beneficial; it would excite emulation and activity; it would mark the progress of improvement, and show every citizen what has been done, and what still remains for future achievement.

2.-Florula Bostoniensis. A Collection of Plants of Boston and its Vicinity, with their generic and specific Characters, principal Synonyms, Descriptions, Places of Growth, and time of Flowering; and occasional Remarks. By JACOB BIGELOW, M. D. &c. Second Edition, greatly enlarged; to which is added a Glossary of the Botanical Terms employed in the Work. 8vo. Cummings, Hilliard, & Co. Boston.

1824.

DR BIGELOW has at length given to the public the long wished for second edition of his Florula Bostoniensis, with such improvements as will account and well atone for the delay attending its publication. We have heretofore taken an extended view of his valuable contributions to the study of American botany; and there

is no occasion for us here to go beyond a brief critical notice of the present volume.

The first edition, published in 1814, appeared at a time when absolutely no facilities for the study of our botany existed, or at least none existed, which were generally accessible in the countrya The knowledge of our plants was locked up in the Latin tongue, and in the short specific descriptions of Linnæus or Michaux. These were of no service, therefore, to any but the professed scholar, and to those who were already conversant with the science of bo tany, and practised in botanical inquiries. They were a sealed book to the great mass of the people, although botany is a study eminently attractive and popular, when presented in a proper shape. This deficiency Dr Bigelow supplied in some measure, by compiling, partly from books, but still more from personal observa tion, a description of the plants of Boston and its vicinity, which, as it included the University of Cambridge and the commercial emporium of New England, was calculated to be as widely bene ficial as a local Flora of any part of the eastern states could well be rendered. And although the task of composing a local Flora may seemingly be more humble, than that of composing larger col lections, yet for the purposes of accurate science, not less than for those of elementary instruction, the superior utility of the more limited works is now very generally appreciated and admitted. It is impossible that the Flora of a continent, or still more of the whole surface of the earth, should be otherwise than comparatively incomplete, superficial, and erroneous. The investigations of one man, nay of many men, are inadequate to perfect such a work without taking too much upon the faith of others, in a science where nothing ought to be set down for certain, unless verified by the strictest scrutiny. But let the botanist confine his efforts within a narrower compass, and he will be enabled, as Dr Bigelow has been in the work before us, to obtain a more exact knowledge of his district, and to communicate that knowledge in a fuller and more perspicuous form.

The plan adopted by Dr Bigelow is excellent in the main. He would perhaps have done better not to follow so closely the old sexual arrangement of the classes. How much soever we may ad mire the labors of the great regenerator of the science of natural history, we should not stop short with the improvements, which he himself introduced into this delightful study. The ingenious ideas of his disciples ought not to be lost sight of in the splendor of their great master's discoveries. This principle would, in our opinion, warrant the omission of the classes Dodecandria and Polyadelphia, if not the remodelling of the classes Monoecia, Diccia, and Polygamia, agreeably to the suggestions of Smith.

Apart from this, the Florula is a model for works of this nature. Prefixed to the plants of each class are the short generic characters

of those plants, so that when the learner takes up one of them for examination, he is regularly guided through its class and order to its genus. The description of each plant includes, first, the specific character, and then a full description of the appearance, habits, time of flowering, localities, &c. of the plant. The Florula would be far less valuable, were either the specific characters or the full description omitted. The first is most useful to the botanist, who is accustomed to the study of plants, provided he has all the species of a genus before him; because he can instantly detect the species by looking at the specific difference alone, whilst a full description would only serve to embarrass and mislead him. Hence, in the species Plantarum, where Linnæus knew but one species of the genus, he gave no description; and, where it was practicable, he recorded no more than a single fact whereby to distinguish the several species. Instances of this occur throughout the work, as in the genera Lolium, Claytonia, Periploza, Beta, Cressa, Anacardium, Dictamnus, &c.* Indeed, such is the general plan of the specific differences in botanical books. But in a work designed for popular use, for the unlearned, for those who' pursue the study of botany from a liberal and extended curiosity merely, or as an elegant recreation, a kind of intellectual amusement, more than this is required. They need a description of the plant in the full meaning of the term. And this we have in the Flórúla, done with great clearness, judgment and skill, and with a degree of faithfulness, which, after constant use of the first edition for many years, and a minute éxamination of most of the plants described in the book, with the book in our hands, we feel authorised to speak of in the strongest language of praise.

The defect of the first edition was its incompleteness. Carefully and industriously as it was compiled, many plants, which are sufficiently abundant in certain localities within the limits, which Dr Bigelow prescribed to himself, were overlooked by him in preparing it for the press. These are inserted in the present edition, and many of the former descriptions are enlarged and corrected, or written anew; and the value of the work is much enhanced by the addition of a glossary of technical terms for the use of learners. Nor is this all. It is well known that Dr Bigelow has long had it in contemplation to compile a Flora of New England. Whilst we lament the abandonment of his design, which is announced in the work before us, our regret is lessened by his inserting in it the plants, which he had collected with a view to that object. The second edition thus contains nearly twice as many plants as the first, and our readers will readily believe us when we say, the value of the work is more than doubled in consequence of all these improvements. The students of botany, into whatever part of New * Caroli Linnæi, Species Plantarum, Holm. 1753.

A

England their inquiries may carry them, will now find the Florula a convenient manual, and a safe guide in the study of one of the most fascinating of all the departments of natural history.

3.-A Treatise on Crimes and Misdemeanors, by William Oldnall Russell, of Lincoln's Inn, Esq. Barrister at Law. First American Edition, with additional Notes of Decisions in the American Courts. By DANIEL DAVIS, Solicitor General of Massachusetts. 2 Vols. 8vo. Boston. Cummings, Hilliard & Co. 1824.

RUSSELL'S Treatise on Crimes and Misdemeanors is not only the most complete and the latest, but is also the most approved of the modern digests on the subject. It contains the principles relative to every indictable offence except high treason, collected with immense labor from the works of his predecessors and from the statute books, from the new cases in the various printed reports, and many manuscript cases of undoubted authenticity. By it, the errors of other authors are corrected and their deficiencies supplied, and the profession presented with an abstract of the vast mass of authorities on the definitions, descriptions, distinctions and consequences of criminal acts. The subject of evidence on criminal prosecutions is not fully treated of; and that of process and other matters of practice wholly passed over; nor are precedents of indictments introduced; the author conceiving that the law on these subjects was abundantly afforded in several recent publications, particularly in Chitty's Treatise on Criminal Law.

The only works on this express subject published in England before the Restoration, setting aside Lambard, Crompton and Dalton, who confined themselves chiefly to justices of the peace, are Sir William Staundforde's, and the Third Institute. Staundforde was always much esteemed; but Coke was early questioned and denied to be safe authority. His book is very incomplete; it is immethodical, like his other writings; it was a posthumous work printed in its unfinished state. Hence, in the very first reign after it was published, the court of king's bench had repeated occasion to speak of its many errors; and a learned judge, who left behind him a small but valuable collection of cases in crown law, Sir John Kelyng, used these remarkable words in respect of the Third Institute; There are many things in his (Sir E. Coke's) Posthumous Works, which lie under a suspicion, whether they received no alteration, they coming out in the time of that which is called the long parliament, in the time of that. desperate rebellion against King Charles the First."* Thus stood

this branch of the law until the appearance of Hale's Summary, which was nothing more than a judicious and methodical outline of his learned Historia Placitorum Coronæ, which, although the publication of it was ordered by the House of Commons in 1680, did not issue from the press until more than fifty years afterwards, when the public approbation had already been preoccupied by Sergeant Hawkins' Elementary Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown. The high authority of the name of Sir Matthew Hale, and the sterling excellence of Hawkins, caused the profession to rest content with their works for a long period, without demanding any new compilation of Crown Law. Important additions were made to it from time to time, by the publication of Foster's Report and Discourses, Leach's Collection, and Blackstone's Commentaries; and at length the number of undigested judicial decisions and penal statutes had become so immensely great, that a new abridgment of Crown Law was thought necessary, and undertaken, but left incomplete, by Sir Edward Hyde East. In the mean time the indigesta moles of penal law has continued to swell during the lapse of twenty years, until Mr Russell found it more convenient to finish the task, which his predecessor abandoned, by beginning de novo and compiling an entire treatise, than by merely attempting to make additions to East.

It only remains to state what Mr Davis has done for the improvement of the American edition of Russell. This consists in the omission of one third in number of the entire chapters, and many considerable portions of others, which, says the editor, 'have no application to the jurisprudence of this country;' and in appending to the text notes of decisions made in our courts, and references to our statutes. He has succesfully applied to this work the process of amputation, which Messrs Sergeant and Lowber employ to much advantage, but, if anywise objectionably, with too sparing a hand, in republishing the crude modern English reports; and which we strongly urged, not long since, as fit to be exerted in preparing improved editions of the old reporters. We do not need to have our shelves cumbered with expensive volumes of local foreign statutes, and local foreign adjudications, of no actual, and hardly of any possible application to our laws. Yet our booksellers import and reprint them in the gross. We hope the example now set will be generally imitated, whenever editions of bulky English law books are republished in America.