Abstract
WHEN it is recollected that this bulky volume is the product of a single mind, the industry, no less than the encyclopædic knowledge of its author, strikes the reader with astonishment. Whether it is desirable in the interests of science that a publication of this kind should be the work of one man is another question. The system pursued in the compilation of cyclopædias, of relegating each separate article of importance to the man who has paid special attention to that particular subject, has its advantages, and what is lost in unity is gained in exactness and thoroughness. In these days of subdivision of scientific labour, even a man of M. Germain de St. Pierre's vast erudition cannot be the highest authority in every branch of his science, and accordingly we find the articles of very unequal interest and value. Thus, under the head “Herborisation” occurs a list of plants gathered in the environs of Paris by Cornuti, in 1635, valuable, no doubt, in its way, but altogether out of place in a botanical dictionary. On the other hand, so many interesting observations have lately been made on the physiology of climbing plants by Mr. Darwin and others, that we turned with interest to this volume to acquaint ourselves with the newest researches on the subject. The heading ldquo;Lianerdquo; does not appear at all, while under “Grimpant” there are just a dozen lines, and no reference to any other article. Dissertations on the relative advantages of living in Paris and in the country like that under “Laboratoiredu Botanique” might have been altogether spared. Other objections might readily be made to the plan of the work. A short description of the leading characters of each natural order is useful, but the utility would have been increased by inserting the Latin names of the orders, with a reference from them to the French names, as from Ranunculaceæ to “Renonculacées”, or from Umbelliferæ to “Ombellifères.” The selection of a few genera and even species for description does not commend itself in the same manner, and the selection must necessarily be arbitrary and partial. Nevertheless, with these defects, we have in the work before us a most useful and valuable cyclopædia, containing an immense mass of information on every branch of botany, which cannot fail to be almost a necessary book of reference alike to the man of science and the student. On those subjects in particular in which M. St. Pierre is an acknowledged authority second to none, the work is especially valuable. The illustrations are copious and admirable.
St. Pierre's Dictionary of Botany.—Nouveau Dictionnaire de Botanique.
Par E. Germain de Saint Pierre, avec 1,640 figures. Pp. 1,388. (Paris: J. B. Baillière et fils, 1870. London: Williams and Norgate.)
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B., A. St Pierre's Dictionary of Botany—Nouveau Dictionnaire de Botanique. Nature 1, 577 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/001577b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001577b0