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259 Xy AN AMERICAN KEW.

AN AMERICAN KEW.

N the banks of the Thames, about a dozen miles from London in
a southerly direction, lies the ancient town of Twickenham. In
the seventeenth century, Alexander Pope had a villa there; somewhat
later, Horace Walpole built his rococo castle at Strawberry Hill, a mile
beyond the village; and close by, to the north, is Whitton, where Sir
John Suckling lived. Within an easy hour's walk stands Hampton
Court, built by Cardinal Wolsey of haughty and unhappy memory,
and approached through the magnifieent avenue of Bushey Park.
Nearly as far in the opposite direction is Richmond, with its venerable
bridge and famous hill, the latter commanding a view of rural English
landscape which, as '"Thackeray says, looks as if it had its hair curled,
like the waiters at the inn on its summit. .A mile down the river from
Richmond, and six miles from London, extend the renowned botanical
gardens of Kew.

It will be seen, therefore, that. T'wickenham was not a bad place
for a suburban residence: the roads were excellent, the scenery and
associations delightful, and, by taking the train, one could be at Waterloo
railway-station, in the heart of London, in half an hour. I lived there
several years, and know something about it.

The most agreeable expedition of all, taking one month with
another, was to Kew Gardens. In winter,it was a luxury to sit in the
hot-houses; in summer, it was lovely throughout. You could travel
thither by train ; but the best way was to go on foot. Passing through
Twickenham town, and through the church-yard, with its gravestones
centuries old, you came out upon the river banks. Here a broad, well-
kept path followed the enchanting windings of the stream, and skirted
the lawns of pretty villas on the left. On the right, soon appeared
the green heights of the Hill, with clumps of mighty oaks, and the
gleaming ramparts and windows of the hostelry over all. At its foot,
on the river, were boat-houses and * hards," with slender rowing-eraft
drawn up, or lying afloat, or pushing off into the current with their
freight of white-jerseyed oarsmen. And now came into view the
quaint, hog-backed bridge, with its high stone parapet, and the eddies
swirling against its pers; and Richmond itself, red with brick, white
with stueco, green with trees; irregular and diversified in outline;
resting snug against the base of the Hill, and clambering some distance
up its long slope.

You crossed the bridge, lingering on the way to admire the railroad
bridge a few hundred yards farther down, reflected in the river-mirror.
Between the two bridges are a couple of islets, only a few yards in
diameter, but with trees growing on them ; and hereabouts are gener-
ally moored three or four fishing-punts, in which sit patiently, all day
long, stout, middle-aged fishermen, watching their cork floats drift
down the stream, and faithfully hoping that each new cast will bring

AN AMERICAN KEW. 950

the long-expeeted fish. Often have I. watched them, but the fish never
came. Probably, as Hood conjectured, * it was caught yesterday."

The river-side walk now continues along the Richmond side of the
river. For half a mile, it has the town on the right. "Then the
boundaries of Kew Gardens begin, and here is the most beautiful part
of the walk. Immense trees stretch their ponderous boughs far across
the path, and they droop so low that the pendent foliage almost sweeps
the water. '"l'hrough the fretted sun and shadow the path winds; every
little way there is a hospitable bench, resting on which you gaze forth
upon the quiet-moving river, with its passing wherries, its reflections of
sky and cloud, and its battlemented residences far withdrawn beyond
green meadows on the opposite side. "Phe path is never overcrowded,
even on holidays; but you may always see lovers wandering arm in
arm along it; and occasionally there is a brisk exchange of ** Thames
ehaff" between the occupants of the skimming boats and the loiterers
on the shore. Meanwhile, the great domain of Kew keeps pace with
you on the other hand. You are divided from it by a wide water-
diteh, backed by a high stone embankment, in turn surmounted by an
iron ralling. But your eyes may stray whither feet cannot follow ; and
you note the lovely groves, the beautiful green glades and gracious
vistas, the secluded paths weaving in and out, and now and then
you catch the sparkle of lofty domes of glass rising above the trees,
looking for all the world like gigantie soap-bubbles. It is a sort of
fairy-land beyond there; and long before you arrive at the entrance
your appetite for what lies within is sharp-set.

"The feast in store for you more than fulfils expectation ; but at this
point, since we are journeying in imagination only, and miles count for
nothing, we will turn back, and enter the gardens from the other end.
By this route we approach its beauties gradually and in due order, and
our pleasure has opportunity to grow from promising beginnings to
complete content. "The gate 1s small here, and the uniformed guardian
simply gives us a glance, to assure himself that we are not toughs or
piekpockets. Kew Gardens are free to the publie in the afternoons,
barring only the rowdy element. "The publie would like to have them
free in the mornings, too; and, for aught I know, Sir Joseph Hooker
may have yielded his assent by this time. — But in the seventies, when
I was there, he resisted on the ground that it was necessary to close the
gardens for half the day, in order to allow time for study, and for
keeping the houses and plantations in order. "The grounds are con-
stantly visited by gardeners and botanists from all parts of the country,
and from the world atlarge; and these persons require some measure
of seclusion in order to prosecute their labors and investigations.
Praetieal botany is not, as a rule, pursued at night; though, with the
aid of electric lights, no doubt it might be.

However, we have by this time passed through some introductory
shrubbery, and have emerged into a straight, open avenue, a third
of a mile or more in length. Directly before us is an immensely high
tower,—l should think nearly two hundred feet,—painted red, black,
- blue, and yellow, and fashioned to resemble a Chinese minaret or pagoda.
The central shaft is circular, and, I believe, of masonry; but it is sur-

254 AN AMERICAN KEW.

rounded at short intervals by wooden balconies, and the roof is of a
concave conical shape, like a mandarin's hat. I never saw any signs of
life in this tower, and do not know what it is used for; but I have
heard that the son-in-law of Lord Capel (who first laid out Kew
Gardens some two hundred years ago) added to the importance of the
place by making it the head-quarters of English astronomy ; and this
tower, which certainly would make an excellent observatory, may have
had something to do with that.

Beyond the tower extends a broad, straight path, between well-kept
lawns, on which are planted trees of both native and foreign growth.
Towards the river, on the left, the grounds are irregular and diversified
with elumps of trees, ponds, and grassy undulations. On the right,
concealed by a hedge of foliage, is the highway between Richmond and
London. Before us, at the end of the walk, is an iron fence, dividing
the inner enclosure—the Botanical Gardens proper—from this outer
region. We reach it in due time, and, having passed the gate, are in
the immediate neighborhood of the palm-house, whose bulbous domes
we saw just now from the river bank. It is as beautiful a piece of
glass building as ever I saw, handsomely proportioned, and of noble
outline. Its great size is somewhat concealed by its charming sym-
metry; but when we are within, the vast dimensions are realized.
Beneath its central dome the tallest palms rise unimpeded. You peep
through long vistas of broad green fronds and slender, bending stems:
it broadens and reaches out on every side; the strange, exotic foliage
rejoices the eye, and the warm, embracing atmosphere makes you feel
that you are in the tropies.

To one who, like myself, pretends to no scientifie knowledge of
botany, and who, during these temperate summers and fitful winters,
often hankers after the equator, the atmosphere of a thorough-going
eonservatory has a profound fascination. At one step I pass from the
latitude of * the roaring forties" to that of Martinique or the Galapagos
Islands. I unbutton my coat, and inhale deep breaths of air laden
with the fragrance of the sun-lands. "Phe heat is not enervating, but
stimulating ; for it is redolent with the life-giving emanations of plants
that riot in luxuriance all the year round,—that know neither spring,
autumn, nor winter,——whose multitudinous boughs were made to be the
haunt of paroquets and monkeys, and amidst whose fern-enwrapped
roots lurk lizards and gliding serpents. Here thrive the dark-skinned
races of the torrid zone, innocent of clothes and civilization, seeking
excitement not in the mutations of the stock-exchange or the scandals
of society, but in trapping the alligator and shooting the jaguar and
the antelope with arrows deadly with curari. Into the intricate depths
of these jungles the fierce sun scarcely penetrates ; the unstinted energy
of his own rays has erected a barrier against himself. Here, when the
rain falls, it falls in rushing torrents; when the wind blows, it blows a
shrieking hurricane; when the lightning flashes, the whole dome of
heaven is ablaze with passionate splendor. Here the stars poise and
smoulder close to the earth, and the moon is brighter than the sun of
hyperborean England. Sitting on a rustie bench hedged round with
tapering palm-stems, and screened by leaves two or three of which

— immu uu

AN AMERICAN KEW. 255

would earpet the floor of an ordinary drawing-room, I love to think
of these things.

"The enjoyment is perhaps enhanced by an occasional peep through
the glass walls of the paradise, revealing the melancholy Britisher,
elose at hand in space, but thousands of miles distant in temperature,
stalking rigidly about in overcoat and gloves. "Then, too, the hot-
house, while giving the charm and beauty of the tropies, dispenses with
the inconveniences. Here are no coral-snakes to drop from the boughs
down the back of your neck ; no scorpions or tarantulas to erawl up
your trousers; no apes to pelt you with cocoa-nuts; no rhinoceroses to
toss you above the tree-tops; no tigers to disembowel you and bite
your head off. On the contrary, everything is scrupulously neat and
secure. "The rich loam round the roots of the plants harbors nothing
noxious; the asphalt walks that thread the thicket are clean and trust-
worthy. Ever and anon you come upon a native of the place,—not a
savage, painted in red and black stripes and with his bow-string drawn
to his ear, but—4a quiet and sober gardener in his shirt-sleeves, pruning
a dead leaf or bough, or raking the mould round the roots of a new
importation, or wielding a waiering- -pot. The place is quite still; the
huge leaves hang motionless; the noise of a pair of steps being dragged
into position resounds through the building; and, if you listen, you
will at all times hear the pleasant trickling of water in some reservoir
or other. If the terrors of the jungle are still too much for your
nerves, you may be comforted by observing that each plant wears a
label, painted on wood or enamelled on tin, describing its scientific name
and habitat. It cost money to bring them here, and the very leaves of
their twigs are numbered.

But there are other places to be visited besides the palm-house. 25
we emerge from its luxurious warmth into the cool English air, we see
in front of us a large, circular pool, with broad, shallow flights of stone
steps leading down to it, and English willows bending over it. Water-
fowl swim and quack here, and children elude their nurses and get their
feet wet. lf we pass round to the other side, and then look back to
the palm-house, we behold it inverted in the smooth mirror of the
water,—a delectable spectacle. It was like a fairy palace already ; but
this shadowy duplication of it quite removes it from the material
sphere, and makes it a lovely dream. Kew Gardens are full of such
felieitous devices.

To our right are acres of yet unexplored hot-houses. We stroll
towards them along eccentric paths, amidst beds of purple rhododen-
drons, geraniums, tulips, narcissuses, or hyacinths, according to the
season; and everywhere is the matehless English turf, compact and
flawless as velvet, and. the leafy, overshadowing English trees. But
let us seek the dwelling-place of the Victoria Regia. lt grows, I
believe, on the Amazon, which is as near the equator as one can well
get; but latitudes are much mixed up in Kew Gardens, and this titanic
water-lily is only a few rods distant. It basks on the surface of a
pool, in an atmosphere of delicious warmth,—its leaves, each of the
diameter of a dining-table, covering the water. Amidst these great
green disks blossoms the flower, a nosegay of which would fill a farm-

256 AN AMERICAN KEW.

wagon. t is said that the native Brazilian savages and Guianians
walk about on the green leaves, and use them as rafts or stepping-
stones to cross the lagoons. As to the flowers, though it is difficult to
imagine anything more beautiful than our own water-lilies, yet these
blossoms fairly surpass them, not only because they are a foot across,
but because of the richness of the innumerable petals, and the gorgeous
cluster of purple stamens that form the centre. And they fill the air
with a fragrance vital and voluptuous. One longs to verify in his own
experience that story about walking on the leaves,—not to speak of
lopping off a flower or two to furnish one's study withal. But the
quiet gardener, in his shirt-sleeves, though he appears to be absorbed
in his work, has his eye on you; and you can do nothing but stand
and stare in admiration.

The hottest of the hot-houses, if my memory serves me, were the
eactus-house and the fern-house. "The caeti were not beautiful, but
they were grotesque and curious. "There were none that I should have
cared to handle. "Their uneouth shapes and awkward putting-together
seem characteristie of an epoch when Nature's handiwork was much
less skilful and comely than it is now. They call up visions of forlorn
wastes and desert solitudes. Their armature of thorns and prickles
appears to indicate that they consider themselves very attractive and
take unusual pains in the way of self-protection. Perhaps the donkeys
of their time were unreasonably voracious. "The modern thistle cer-
tainly indieates increased refinement of taste on the donkeys' part.
Yet this ungainliness is occasionally redeemed by exquisite blossoms,
of pale, pure hues, cropping out directly from the substance of the
plant, without any pretence of a stem. One variety of cactus, in addi-
tion to its prickles, had provided itself with long white hair, which,
surmounting its tall and rather meagre figure, gave it the aspect of an
aged man of repulsive character. Among the cacti, though not of
them, was a hideous plant (or it may have been a wax model of one)
apparently of the fungus family. It grew on the bare sand or rock,
and both flowers and leaves had a greasy, flesh-like surface, deeply
tinted, and ornamented with poisonous-looking blotehes. It was of
immense size, the flowers being at least a foot in diameter ; and if the
Vale of Gehenna has any vegetation, I should expect it to be like
this. .A more depraved, diabolieal plant it would be impossible to
imagine. ts preposterous attempt to imitate the form and character-
isties of ordinary vegetation made it still more revolting. "The label
described it as bemg very rare,—which is some comfort.

The fern-house, besides being hot, is dripping with moisture; and,
the glass being tinged with green, the effect is somewhat like being
submerged in a tropic ocean. The greenness of the ferns is vivid enough
at any rate, but this artificial light adds such intensity to it that, after
a few minutes, you are on the point of forgetting that there is any other
color besides green in the world. 'The ferns are arranged in glass
cases, or vivariums. "lhere is nothing in nature to parallel their delicate
and various beauty. I call it various; but it is chiefly beauty of form,
and that, too, within comparatively narrow limitations. But the fine-
ness, the subtilty, the changefulness of line, are endlessly charming;

/

Y

AN AMERICAN KEW. 257

they may have other uses, but if they had been made for pure beauty
it would be use enough. They must have been of great ssthetic value
to artists, especially to architects, decorators, and chasers of metals. "The
mediseval illuminators certainly made capital out of them ; reminiscences
of their shapes render lovely the ornament of innumerable missals. As
for the color, green seems to admit of more gradations than any other
hue, as any one who has observed the woods in spring knows; and of
all others it is the most grateful and wholesome to the eye. With the
rough grays and browns of the rocks it makes enchanting combinations.
But, really, this moist fern atmosphere is too languorous and enervating ;
we must escape into the outer world,—which, for.a time, will appear
strangely red, like that which astronomers suppose to be characteristic
of the planet Mars.

It would take too long, even in imagination, to go through all Kew
Gardens at this leisurely rate. Only, for splendor of color and volup-
tuousness of perfume, there is nothing comparable to the Conservatory,
in which roses and all other bright-hued flowers are grouped and massed
in sumptuous magnificence. 'Tlhe rose is England's flower: she has
taken possession of it, as of so many other good things, without troub-
ling herself to prove any title to it; and there is nothing in her history
or character to make her worthy of it. One can understand why Persia
should claim the rose ; and in our own Southern States the houses are
smothered with roses, and the air that flows from them is sweeter than
incense, [I have, it is true, gathered English roses in December ; and
the houses of York and Lancaster wore roses which, red and white
alike, were steeped in blood. But, if anything could justify England
in her appropriation of the rose, it would be this rose-house at Kew,
where eritieism becomes impossible, and one can only gaze, and inhale,
and love. Pink, white, crimson, golden, they cluster and triumph
there: with their exquisite petals Venus and Mars might strew a couch
worthy of an Olympian marriage. If love, romance, and beauty died
out of human nature, this flower would bring them back ; and so long
as it stays with us, we may be sure that life will not lose the glory that
entitles it to immortality.

While meditating these matters, we might take a turn in the wood-
house—by which I mean the building containing specimens, polished
and in the rough, of all kinds of woods from all parts of the world.
Their gamut of color embraces all the hues of the rainbow, and many
others; and there are specimens of wood-mosaies that are inferior in
beauty only to agate and marble. Or we may wander through the
eorridors and halls of the museum, which exhibits every sort of manu-
faeture into which vegetable substances enter, including numberless
fabries of Indian or savage origin. One is surprised, after examining
these things, that our little earth should be large enough to contain
anything that is not more or less botanical.

But I set out to write about an American Kew, and my introductory
refleetions are monopolizing the entire space at my command. "The
truth is, of course, that no American Kew exists; but it is pertinent,
at the present time, to inquire whether there is any reason why it should
not. America, I believe, is the only country of consequence that does

Vor. XLVII.—17

258 AN AMERICAN KEW.

not possess an important botanical collection ; while, on the other hand,
there is certainly no country that has more natural advantages for
creating and maintaining one. Were we to confine ourselves strictly to
our own boundaries, we could make a magnificent showing ; but we
have the whole globe to draw upon, and we are so situated as to make this
draft a comparatively easy affair. As to the scientific expediency of the
enterprise there can be no dispute. "The value of botanical study has
always been recognized. "The Dark Ages, whose enlightenment we are
just beginning to appreciate, are greatly our creditors in this regard:
the monks of the old monasteries, together with Albertus Magnus and
other Hermetie philosophers who pretended to be absorbed in the pursuit
of the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life, were at any rate
diligent botanists, and, by their study and cultivation of plants, were
the means of preserving countless specimens that would otherwise have
been irretrievably lost, and which are of high value in medicine and
otherwise. But for the energy of certain obscure botanists who lived
and labored upwards of a century ago, the civilized world might now
be eking out a miserable existence without either coffee or quinine,
We had a narrow shave of it, as it was. In 1850, England and Hol-
land became alarmed at the increasing price of cinchona, due to the
rapid decrease of the forests in Peru. Seeds and seedlings were planted
in Java; but they were of an inferior quality, and turned out poorly.
At length England sent out Sir Clements Markham, who collected a
quantity of healthy plants in Peru and despatched them to India,
where a few of them arrived in good condition and were set out. The
Success was enormous ; and there are to-day, in Bengal alone, upwards
of five million plants of this useful vegetable, and myriads more are
distributed all over the earth. As for coffee, our hopes of it came at
length to rest upon a residue of three plants, which somebody whose
name I have forgotten secured and carried away with him from its
native habitat. Of these three, two died on the passage; but the third
survived. But for that, how should we have fared at breakfast and
after dinner? The unspeakable Turk, at all events, must have expired
on his divan cushions long since : his cup of coffee is as vital to him as
his hookah, whieh he owes to the magnanimous Raleigh.

There is no need, however, of multiplying instances to establish
the value of botanieal knowledge and the importance of encouraging
and cultivating it. And yet we Americans, the leaders of civilization,
have, after more than a century of national existence, done nothing to-
wards keeping our end up 4n this respect. Surely the time is over-ripe
for us to lay the foundations of such a collection as shall eclipse Kew
itself and serve henceforth as a model to the world. "The thing can so
easily be done that it is a source of special wonder that it was not done
long ago. 1t cannot fail, when done, to profit all concerned, —the pro-
moters, the students, and the publie at large, —who will not only have
the grounds as a perennial pleasure-resort, but who will pick up inevi-
tably a considerable acquaintance with botanieal facets, which will
redound to their health and prosperity in various ways.

Doubtless, onee the idea has taken root, there will be Gardens all
over the Union; but it behooves us in New York to be first in the

AN AMERICAN KEW. 259

field, and to spare no pains to maintain the first place. Indeed, as
old New-Yorkers will remember, Manhattan Island has already had
a botanical plantation; though, owing to certain causes, it has disap-
peared and left no trace. It was when the present century was hardly
more than a score of years old that one Dr. Hosack marked out a gar-
den on the land now comprised between Forty-Sixth and Fifty- -Sixth
Streets and Sixth Avenue and-East River. For several years the good
doctor pegged away at his admirable hobby, and really achieved excel-
lent results, although the popular mind was as yet scarcely educated
to understand what he would be at. "When, at length, he departed to
that Paradise where botany and botanists have their apotheosis, he
bequeathed his garden to Columbia College, on certain conditions.
They were to be allowed to erect their new projected college buildings
in a corner of the garden, and, in return for this grant, were to see to
it that the plantations were kept in good order, and augmented as op-
portunity offered. I blush to say that the college, after taking advan-
tage of the doctor's land, neglected to carry out his stipulation : they
suffered the garden to fall to rack and ruin, until i& became nothing
but an unsightly wilderness; and then the real-estate cormorants came,
and we see the result.

Nevertheless, the evil that men do, or the good that they leave un-
done, is sooner or later transmuted into somewhat conducive to the
general welfare. Dr. Hosack's garden could hardly have been per-
mitted to occupy its broad acres down to the present date; and per-
haps it is better that it should expire in its infancy, instead of under-
going annihilation in the beauty of its maturity. Manhattan Island
has no room for such an institution now. But there is in the imme-
diate vicinity of the city, and under the jurisdiction of the Park
Commissioners, a range of ground peculiarly fitted to be the site ot an
American Kew; and the Commissioners aforesaid have expressed their
willingness to make a free gift of i& to New-Yorkers, provided the
latter, during the current year, show a disposition to give the where-
withal to render a Botanical Garden practicable.

Here 1s an opportunity evidently vouchsafed by Providence in the
nick of time. "The tract in question is none other than the Bronx
Park, a delectable region, within four miles of Harlem (two miles
nearer us than Kew to London), having protecting timber, fertile
soil, low and high land, and traversed by the Bronx River, which
furnishes in abundance all the water that can be needed.

It is by no means.an unredeemed wilderness: much of it has been
occupied from early times by wealthy residents, and the labor required
to bring it into a suitable condition is thereby greatly diminished.
In natural beauty it is unequalled in our neighborhood: it is more
spacious than Kew, and surpasses it in all native qualities of soil and
topography. The pecuniary value of this concession to the city, apart
from other considerations, is not less than one million dollars: a more
tempting offer has never been made to patriotie science, and;if it be
not accepted on the spot, can never be expected hereafter. 'AII that
the wealthy citizens of New York have to do, in-order to:make an
American Kew a certainty and bestow undying credit. on their own

260 THE WORST OF IT.

names, is to subscribe to a preliminary fund of two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars as a. guarantee of their good faith : this sum will be
spent in giving the grounds their preliminary treatment and in laying
the foundations of a work that shall be the foremost of its kind.

When American naturalists have been furnished with a place
where they can study new plants and determine their qualities and
uses under cultivation, investigate the animal and insect pests of the
vegetable kingdom that have injured and still menace local planta-
tions, devise means to aid in providing the growing population of the
continent with good things to eat, and plenty of them, prosecute in-
quiries into the medicinal virtues of herbs, and, in a word, canvass the
whole possibilities for good of the world of plants, we may expect to
see our country enter upon a period of prosperity not unworthy of our
hopes and promises And many a young man who desires to use his
brain and energy in some pursuit that may be useful to his fellows
can receive here an instruction and a training more valuable than the
. eurricula of the colleges, and embark in a profession obstructed by less
competition than law, medicine, or literature.

A. Botanical Garden, then, we should and must have; and now is
the time to set it a-going. The Torrey Botanical Club of Columbia
College (mark how the stings of conscience operate!) have already
begun to work in its behalf; and subscribers to the fund ought not to
be far to seek: the project, wherever it has been spoken of, has met
with nothing but approval and encouragement. Such an enterprise is
at least as well worth endowing as a town library or a millionaire uni-
versity ; and, indeed, the only point that it seems necessary to empha-
size in this place is the importance of giving the preliminary fund at
once. It will, of course, be only the nucleus of many millions more
to come; but, unless it 1s assured now, the offer of the free site will
be withdrawn, and New York will look very foolish. Suppose, too,
that Philadelphia, or Chicago, or San Francisco, or Boston, were to
profit by our procrastination, and cut in before us?— But surely this
spur is not indispensable to our activity ! -Let us achieve our Garden
because it is a useful and noble thing to do; and then the.rest of the
country may follow in our wáke. —— ' uw

LUNG Julian. Hawthorne.

THE WORST OF IT.
H, faithless! if Death had bereaved me, at least Death had left

me the past,
With its strange wild glory of joy that was all too keen to last,

And that glory had lit up the future,—the sad years yet to be;
But now there is naught in the future, as naught in the past, for me:

I have tracked one skulking secret, I have dragged it shrieking out,
And the joy of the past is fulfilled with the shame and the horror of
doubt. Edward Jay.

7

THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN. I7I

: : D Eo Rue PON TA esi goo

THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN.

By DANIEL TREMBLY MACDOUGAL,
DIRECTOR OF THE LABORATORIES.

BOTANICAL garden is a museum of plants in the broadest sense

of the term, and its chief purpose is to represent, by means of
living specimens so far as possible, the principal types of the vegetation
of the globe. It is obviously impossible to cultivate on any small area
more than a few thousand of the quarter of a million of species in
existence, and hence the plantations are supplemented by preserved
specimens to illustrate the forms, which, by reasons of limitation of
—., Space, climate and soil, cannot be grown in the locality. In addition
. ihe species which formed the vegetation of the previous geological
eriods are represented by fossil specimens completing the history of
| plant world so far as it is known, and yielding suggestions as to
lescent of the present types.

ihis character. lts collections are arranged to present information
[ the form, relationship, mode of life, habit and general biological
dlaracler of the principal types of vegetation, in sueh manner as to
be capable of comprehension by persons unacquainted with the tech-
nical aspects of the subject. Further interpretation of such facts
may be made by means of books, journals, and lectures devoted entirely
to this phase of the subject.

The material aceumulated for the exploitation of popular knowl-
edge of plants also affords an excellent basis for the induction of
students into the more strictly scientific aspects of botany, and when
supplemented by laboratories furnished with apparatus, miscroscopes,
and other instruments of precision, the activities of these students may
be earried beyond the frontiers of the subject in the investigation and
discovery of new facts and phenomena. This extension of the bounda-
ries of knowledge concerning the plant world may be carried on
io advantage, only when a library is at hand, which contains all
of the more important literature bearing upon the subject. The
descriptions of the results of such researches should be made in publica-
tions devoted exclusively to this purpose, in accordance with the practice
of all the more important botanical institutions in the world.

The general scope of the New York Botanical Garden has already
been described by the writer in a previous number of this magazine
(January, 1897). "The greater part of its actual construction and or-

172 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ganization has taken place in the last three years, and it has now
entered upon the discharge of its chief functions.

The Garden comprises two hundred and fifty acres of land in Bronx
Park, in the City of New York, which was set aside for that purpose
by the Department of Publie Parks in 1895. 4A fireproof museum
building of stone, brick and terra cotta, 308 by 110 feet, has been
erected for the Garden by the city in the western part of the grounds,
near the Bedford Park Station of the New York Central Railroad.
The building has a basement floor and three stories, with a total

JovRNAL OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICA! GARDEN PrarE III.

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MaAP oF THE GARDEN.

floor space of nearly two acres, and a window area equal to half that
of the floor area. 'The basement contains a lecture theater capable of
seating seven hundred people, two large exhibition halls, preparation
rooms, constant temperature laboratory, offices and storerooms. "The
first floor is devoted to a collection of economic plants, and the tem-
porary installation of useful products in the way of foods, drugs, tim-
bers, woods, fibers, gums, waxes, resins, oils, sugars, starches, poisons,
utensils, etc., gives hints as to the great diversity of uses that may
be made of vegetable products, together with an illustration of their
method of preparation and their derivation.

THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GAEDEN. [Ua

'l'he second floor is given over to an exhibit of types of all of the
more important families and tribes of plants, from the simplest and
most minute, to the highest and most complex. Specimens, models,
fruits, seeds, drawings and photographs are used to bring the principal
facts clearly before the observer. A set of swinging frames running
parallel to the cases containing the types of the flora of the world, are
used to display specimens of the plants found within a hundred miles
of New York City. A number of special microscopes have been con-
structed for the purpose of forming a perfect exhibit, which will enable
the visitor to see some of the more salient features in the minute
structure of some of the plants in the cases.

'The third floor contains the library, herbarium and laboratories.
TThe library occupies a stack room extending to the rear of the middle
of the building, two small storerooms and a large circular reading-
room, under the illuminated dome. Here are assembled the botanical

'THE MUSEUM.

]niversity, as well as those accumulated by the
Garden, now n zoo more than eight thousand volumes, with no
reckoning of unbound separates and pamphlets. "Phe collection of
botanical periodicals. ls nearly complete, and the library is especially
rich in literature pun the mosses, ferns, and the flora of North
and South America.

The main e oet im occupies à room in the east wing, eighty-five
by forty-seven feet, and connected with it are storerooms and offices
adequate to its administration. Windows on all sides of the main
room and skylights give ample illumination. The number of mounted
specimens on the shelves is not less than three quarters of a million,
including the herbarium of Columbia University, which is deposited
here in aecordance with the agreement between the two institutions.
The collection is especially rich in fungi, embracing the collections of
Ellis and other eminent mycologists. A large amount of material of

174 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

great historie value in connection with the work of Dr. John 'Torrey
and the earlier botanical development of America is included. Acces-
sions are being made to the herbarium at the rate of fifty to a hundred
thousand specimens annually.

The laboratories consist of a series of rooms facing northward and
westward, with special facilities for taxonomie, embryological and
morphological investigations. Physiological and photographie dark-
rooms, the experiment room for living plants and chemical laboratories
offer especially ample opportunities for the record and development
of practically all phases of plant physiology. "The laboratories, library
and herbarium are open to .the graduate students from Columbia

IN THE FOREST.

University, in addition to those from other institutions of learning who
may register directly at the Garden. "The latter, in return, have the
privileges of students at Columbia University.

A weekly convention of all of the workers in botany in New York
City is held in the museum, at which the results of recent researches
are given or an address is made by an invited speaker from out of
the city.

The area of the Garden presents a very irregular topography, com-
prising, as it does, a half mile of the valley of the Bronx River, low
marshes and swamps, artificial lakes, open glades, with heavy peaty
soil, upland plains with gravelly sandy soil, granite ridges, and about
seventy acres of natural forest. About forty acres of this forest con-
sist of a dense grove of hemlocks, which has never been seriously

THE NEW YOEK BOTANICAL GARDEN. 175

disturbed by the hand of man. It is truly remarkable that the City of
New York should include within its boundaries a primitive forest of
this size, and this invaluable feature is to be preserved forever by a spe-
cial contract between the Garden and the Department of Public Parks.
Since a hemlock forest is a climactie formation, and is not replaced by
any other growth unless cut down, it may be expected to endure through
the present geological epoch, barring the accidents of flood, storm and
fire. 'l'he great diversity of conditions offered by the natural features
of the Garden gives it a very rich population of indigenous plants.
A census ot the ferns and seed-plants at the time the tract was con-
verted to its present purpose showed nearly a thousand species.

THE NORTH MEADOWS.

The entire area has been handled most sympathetically by those in
charge of the architectural features of the Garden. "The buildings
were erected in the more open western part of the grounds, which
offered the least valuable landscape features, and the surface around
them has been improved by plantings. "The natural beauties of the tract
have been most zealously guarded from disturbances of all kinds. "The
attractive panoramas of wild woodland and stream offered to the artist
and lover of nature have been left absolutely untouched, but made
more valuable by increased ease and safety of access.

A number of special biological groups of plants have been established
in suitable places in various parts of the Garden. The trees are in the
arboretum east of the Bronx on the side and summit of a long ridge; un-

176 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

assorted and reserve material of all kinds is kept in the nurseries on
the eastern slope of the same ridge; the salicetum is established on
the border of the marsh in the northern end of the Garden, giving
the willows and poplars the conditions under which they grow best.
The fruticetum occupies an adjoining upland plain underlaid with
gravel to a depth of twenty feet, affording space for the cultivation of
a large number of shrubs, while the conifers are located on slopes
to the westward of the hemlock forest. 'lhe viticetum is along the
western edge of the forest, and the trellises of logs and timbers, ex-
tending for a length of six hundred feet, give suitable support to the

THE WATERFALL.

vines. '"Plhe herbaceous plantation occupies an open glade to the west-
ward of the forest, and lies between two granite ridges. It is traversed
through the middle by a small stream widened at places into lagoons for
aquatie forms. About twenty-two hundred species are now in cul-
tivation in this plantation. 'The wide border plantations which are
established along the boundaries also offer opportunities for the growth
of a great variety of trees, herbs and shrubs.

"The horticultural houses, also erected by the City for the Garden, are
located in the western part of the grounds at some distance to the south
of, and facing, the museum. .A palm-house, with a total height of dome
of ninety feet, is the central feature, from which lower ranges extend on
either side, making a total length of front of five hundred and twelve
fecet. 'The horticultural houses, as well as the museum, are heated by

"o
7

TIPP AENEA VV OUR CODE ASNUIOAT E GP ASTUDYBEN: 1777

steam furnished by a power house beside the railroad on the extreme
edge of the Garden.

The collections of living plants in the plantations are arranged in
the same system as the synoptie collection in.the museum. Every
plantation contains species of similar habit, and the horticultural houses
are used for the cultivation of forms which may not endure the outdoor
climate of this locality. Not only are the plants from warmer zones
grown under glass, but when it is desired to develop native species
out of their season, they may be forced and brought to full develop-
ment and bloom in the winter.

IN THE HERBACEOUS PLANTATION.

The construction of driveways and paths is being prosecuted by the
Park Department with all available funds at their commands.

Publie appreciation of the natural beauties of the Garden, and of
the phases of botany illustrated by its collections has been most gratify-
ing, as shown by the great and constantly increasing number of visitors.
The series of popular lectures given in the museum on Saturday after-
noons have been well attended. "The Journal of the Garden, which
serves as a means of communication with its members, brings to the
notice of its readers interesting facts in botany, horticulture and for-
estry, and records a constantly swelling list of gifts of books, specimens
and plants.

The library, herbarium and laboratories have been open for only a
few months, yet twenty-two students have taken advantage of the

VOL. LvII.—12

178 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

facilities thus afforded during the collegiate year now closing. Investi-
gations of importance have been carried forward by these students, by
members of the staff, and by the members of the staff of Columbia
University. "The results of some of these investigations have been pub-
lished in the Bulletin of the Garden, which also contains the official
reports of the organization. Papers written by members of the staff
or students are reprinted from the periodicals in which they appear as
contributions, while a fourth series of Memoirs has been found neces-
sary for the presentation of papers of great length.

Not the least important of the investigating functions of a garden
consists in its participation in the exploration of remote or unknown
parts of the world in an effort to obtain a better knowledge of the plant
population of the earth. During the brief period of its activity the

HORTICULTURAL HOUSES.

Garden has already carried out work of this character in the Rocky
Mountains and in Porto Rico.

The ordinary work of the Garden is maintained by the income from
its endowment fund, by the annual dues of its members (now numbering
over eight hundred) and by an annual appropriation by the City. Its
board of managers is authorized to hold and administer trust funds, and
it is hoped by the aid of gifts or bequests for special or general
purposes to expand its usefulness in directing investigation. Already
it has been favored by a bequest of a considerable sum of money by
the late ex-Chief Justice Charles P. Daly, which may be devoted to any
purpose determined by the board of managers.

RorD To MAGDOUGAE. 0o | :
£u n
d jd 3M "Reprinted from : zi
|... THE MINNESOTA MAGAZINE Unas
BS | Y Vol n "Nod

Reprinied from The Minnesota Magazine for October, 1895

'

Botanic Gardens
D. T. Mac Doucar

HE TERM botanic garden in its broadest sense is used to
designate a plot of ground on which 1s grown a collection
- of plants, which so far as possible under the prevailing climatic
conditions, should represent as many of the principal forms of
vegetation as is possible. It is obviously impossible to bring
together at one point on the earth's surface more than a frac-
tion of the living plants of the globe, since the number known
toexist at the present time 1s nearly half a million species. The
largest collection of plants which 1t has been possible to grow
in one locality is that of the botanic garden of Paris with its
fifteen thousand species. In consequence of this limitation, due
chiefly to substratum and climate, the living plants are gener-
ally supplemented by prepared specimens of fossil and contem-
poraneous forms, in such manner as to present morecompletely
the vegetation of the globe. Furthermore the living plants
hould be so assembled as to demonstrate the descent and re-
lationships of the several important groups, distribution over
climatic and geographic zones, as well as their principal biolog-
. ical adaptations to the factors which surround their natural
habitats.
In addition to this strictly natural method of treatment, it
is also customary to illustrate by groups, the forms which have
become of special interest because of their food furnishing, tex-
tile yielding, medicinal properties, or other economic value. At
the present time the economic feature has become subordinated
to the other—biologic aspects of plant life in garden organiza-
tion, although it is to the first named feature that these insti-
tutions owe their origin.
The first botanic gardens were formed by the Benedictine
monks of Italy in the ninth century, and were devoted entirely
to the growing of *'simples". This continued to be their func-

2 BOTANIC GARDENS

tion until near the close of the sixteenth century (1560) when
botany in its scientific phases received its first contribution in

the writings of Conrad Gessner. Since that time the purpose |

and usefulness of the botanie garden have steadily broadened
with the development of the science, until at the present time all
the institutions devoted to the important branches of the sub-
ject are supplemented by gardens especially adapted to their re-
quirements. Itis only when a botanic garden is equipped with
laboratories for the furtherance of investigation and sustains
an organic relation to a school or university, that it may be
said to attain its highest possibilities of usefulness. Conjointly
and partially 1n consequence of its long existence near educa-
tional centers, the botanic garden has become, instead of a sim-
ple field for the cultivation of thousands of species of plants, a
laboratory where the biologist may demonstrate the known
principles governing the development of plant life, as well as
penetrate deeper into the history of this, one of the two great
groups ofliving things. The botanic garden is not, however,a
laboratory for the scientist alone, but for the landscape artist
as well, who may dispose of 1ts masses of plant forms with a

feeling of regard for their artistic value, making it a most effic--

ient means of cultivation and gratification of the public taste.
In many of the better known gardens of the world this zesthetic
feature has become a prominent or predominant idea. This is
especially true of those formed in the greater cities on a founda-
tion of special endowment either private or governmental.

A somewhat anomalous combination of economic and zes-
thetic purpose is offered by the famous Royal Garden of Kew,
England, and its numerous branches in the English colonies.
Here the great central garden with its six thousand species of
growing plants, magnificent conservatories and beautiful drive-
ways, has become almost entirely a pleasure park which is vis-
ited by half a million people vearly, whilethegreater part of the
economic and scientific work of the organization is performed
by the herbarium connected with it. ^ 'The subordinated
branches in the various parts of the empire devote almost their
entire resources to testing the economic qualities of plants and
to the local dissemination of information thus derived. It isof

BOTANIC GARDENS 3

course to be understood that while thechief purpose of the Kew
system is economic, it has made a long series of contributions
of very great importance to systemátic botany. I quote the
following paragraph from an authorized guide to the Kew
grounds:

"Tt may be mentioned that Kew 1s not only a great educa-
tional establishment and pleasure resort, but also the recog-
nized center of the various botanic gardens throughout the Em-
pire. The part it has played 1n theintroduction of the cinchona
into India, and in fostering various other importantindustries,
is well known. It may well be described as the greatest botan-
ical clearing house of the Empire. To it a large number of
plants are constantly being forwarded from all over the world
to be named, for which purpose a staff of botanists is provided,
and the collection of dried plants, or herbarium, as well as the
large botanical library, 1s unrivalled throughout the world.
In the same way the collection of cultivated plants and trees,
both hardy and exotic, is the most perfect in existence."

When organized chiefly for teaching and research the
botanic garden differs in many essential particulars from that
described above. From this point of view, and with regard to
the advantages of geographical position and biological possi-
bilities perhaps the most important botanical garden in the
world is that of Buitenzorg, in Java, established by the gov-
ernment of Holland in 1817. Originally founded for the pur-
pose of testing the economic value of plants indigenous to the
Dutch colonies in the East Indies, and for the distribution of
seeds, plants, etc., after the customary manner of such institu-
tions, it has widened its scope and developed its facilities until
almost all branches of purely scientific and applied botany may
be pursued to advantage within it. The real value of this gar-
den may be better understood when it is stated that thescience
of botany in its present elementary condition rests upon re-
searches carried on principally with plants indigenous in the
north temperate zone and such tropical plants as may be grown
in conservatories. And the solution of some of the moreimpor-
tant problems of biology is to be attained only by the study of
these tropical plants in unlimited number and under natural

BOTANIC GARDENS

NZORG, JAVA

2

N, BUITE

IN BorANIC GARDE

E

.

/ITEW OF La:

Plate I.

Le]

BOTANIC GARDENS

Plate

II.

"Tug Bo'vrANIC INsTEPUTE, Ll/EIPSIC

6 BOTANIC GARDENS

conditions, which in the main have been studied only amid arti-
fical surroundings. At Buitenzorg the eleven hundred acres of
ground comprised within the garden occupies territory from
near sea level to a height of about eight thousand feet, and per-
fectly suitable climatic conditions can be found for all the nine
thousand species growing within it. Biologically this would
be equivalent to a strip of territory at sea level extending from
the tropics northward as far as Minneapolis. In addition to
many other advantages, the abundant water supply in the
streams and lakes within its limits furnish abundant facilities
for the study of aquatic plants. In Plate I is shown a view of
an island in one of the large lakes devoted to this purpose, 1n
the main grounds. It is of course unnecessary to say that this
institution has furnished opportunities for many important
discoveries, and that it has become a Mecca for the botanists
ofthe world. The list of names of investigators who have car-
ried on work here includes a large number of those most prom-
inent in the development of botanical science.

(The great age of the gardens of continental Europe make
them objects of great interest since many of them antedate the
foundation of botany as a biological science. That at Bologna
was formed in 1568, at Leyden in 1577, at Montpelier 1n 1593,
at Giessen in 1605, at Strassburg 1n 1620, at Jena 1n 1629, at
Paris in 1633 and at Upsala in 1657.

As has been previously mentioned, nearly all of the older
zardens began with the cultivation of medicinal or economic
plants, and their development until the present time has been
influenced by the peculiar local conditions surrounding each of
them, the corresponding development of biological study at the
time of their most vigorous expansion, and the particular part
assumed by the botanists in charge of them, in scientific inves-
tigation. . As a result, the gardens of Europe are each highly
specialized and their chief purposes may be found through the
entire range of usefulness from pleasure parks to institutions
for research. In those devoted to the last named purpose the
specialization has been carried to such farther extent that gen-
erally, in each of them, facilities are afforded for rescarch in one
or at least a few lines only, of purely scientific or applied botan-

E
E
K
r
!
4

BOTANIC GARDENS ü

icalscience. Institutions of this character are generally under
the care of a somewhat independent staff of administration and
instruction and are supported bv separate appropriation oren-
dowment, although thev sustain a relation to the university
somewhat similar to that of the department or school to the.
American university.

The greater part of thehistory of thedevelopment of botanyv
lies within the botanical institutes of the gardens of Germany,
and prominent among those distinguished by the results thev
have accomplished as well as their presentactivity may be men-
tioned those of Munich, Würzburg, Tübingen, Góttingen and
Leipsic.

In such institutions the actual number of growing plants 1s
comparatively small, but it consists of species which max be
of possible service in the solution of the problems under inves-
tigation, and only 1n the larger ones is an attempt made to il-
lustrate the principles of geographic botany. The actual area
enclosed rarely includes more than a few acres, and beside the
ground for growing plants it also furnishes the site for the
laboratories and otherfacilities which constitute an *institute"'.
Plate II. is a view of the botanical institute at Leipsic, which
at the present time occupies a prominent, if not the foremost
place in the amount of valuable results attained.

The wisely-selected but not extravagantequipment, theease
with which skilled labor may be secured, the fixed and liberal
poliey of the German state toward scientific research, and the
accurate and skillful management of these institutes by the sci-
entists who have had them in charge from time to time, have
made them most powerful factors 1n pushing forward the fron-
tiers of knowledge of the biology of plants. Very naturally,
many of these gardens and institutes have become of great
direct and personal interest to the student of natural science,
not only because of their high efficiency, but also on account of
the historic value of certain features. In many instances the
material, perhaps the actual growing plants, upon which epoch-
making investigations have beeu made, are still intact. Thus
at Munich is a very complete collection of cacti upon which

*important work in the evolution of plant forms has been per-

8 BOTANIC GARDENS

formed by Goebel, and a number of anatomical preparations by
the elder Hartig, which were made before thecurrent idea of the
cell had been reached, are prophetic in their accuracy of repre-
sentation of certain cell structures. AÀ complete series of micro-
scopes, representing the entire development of that important
instrument in research, in all branches of natural history, is to
beseen at Tübingen. In one of the enclosures at this place is a
rockery five hundred feet long and twenty feet wide, upon which
are growing two thousand species of Alpine plants. 'CThenicety
with which plants of this character select slope, moisture, soil
and sunlight in their natural habitat on mountain sides and in
northern latitudes can scarcely be comprehended by one who
has not seen them so growing. It is by such groups of living
forms that contributions looking to the solution of thegreatest
questions in biology may be made, and their formation requires
such a degree of skill in the gardener's art and such an intimate
knowledge of plant life as to be possible only for one with the
instincts of a naturalist.

Botany has been given an important place on the college
curriculum 1n America scarcely more than sixty years. Incom-
paratively recent years a few gardens havecome into existence,
nearlv all of which are still in a state of rapid development.
During this period of flux thev have been able only to afford
facilities for general elementary instruction, and to make possi-
ble original work in the classification of our native plants—a
line of research which has been carried on more or less steadily
since the earlier settlements were made on thissideof the Atlan-
tic. Atthe present time a few have begun to offer opportuni-
ties for higher teaching in the more important branches of bo-
tanical science. Among these may be mentioned the Missouri
Botanical Garden of St. Louis, connected with the Washington
University, the Botanical Garden and Arnold Arboretum of
Harvard University, and the Botanic Garden of New York,
now in process of formation and to be connected with Colum-
bia College. The purpose of the Missouri institution may be
best illustrated by the following quotation from the will of 1ts
founder,—'*with the view of having for the use of the public a
botanical garden easily accessible, which should be forever kepte

9p DP

LCS PRENCTE SUN qooMm IgE .VweesmtTTTRIT

BOTANIC GARDENS 9

up for the cultivation and propagation of plants, flowers, frui3
and forest trees, and other productions of the vegetable king-
dom; and a museum and library connected therewith, and de-

J voted to the same and to the science of Botany, Horticulture,

and allied objects." It was formally connected with the Wash- -
ington University in 1885. By a recent announcement of the
director such additions are being made to its growing collec-
tion of plants, library, herbarium, and apparatus as will en-
able a properly equipped investigator to carry on work in any
line of pure and applied botany. At the present time the total
value of the garden and its estimated endowment is estimated
at one and one-half million dollars and its gross income at one
hundred and thirty-üve thousand. The herbarium contains
morethan two hundred and thirty thousand specimens, and
thelibrary about eighteen thousand volumes of carefullv se-
lected works. "This institution will doubtless hold an import-
ant position in the furtherance of investigation iu America.

The Botanical Garden of Harvard has an area of seven
acres and contains about five thousand specimens of growing
plants, so arranged as to facilitate research to some extent in
various lines. The herbarium of seed-forming plants in direct
connection with the garden contains over two hundred thous-
and specimens and the library includes about nine thousand
volumes of books and pamphlets.

'The Arnold Arboretum covers an area of one huudred and
sixty acres and 1s devoted entirely to such trees and shrubs as
may be grown 1n the open air. In direct connection with the
Arboretum is a herbarium, museum and library, for the pur-
pose of aiding study and research in arboriculture, forestry
and dendrology. 'The arboretum is also open as a public park
to the city of Boston. In addition to the facilities mentioned,
the university is also provided with a series of laboratories, a
museum, an extensive library and herbarium for research in
cryptogamic plants.

'The New York Botanical Garden, which is the most recent
addition to botanical institutions, is in process of formation on
an area of two hundred and fifty acres in Bronx Park. By
private subscription a quarter of a million dollars has been

10 BOTANIC GARDENS

raised as a permanent endowment fund, and the city will erect
buildings for museum, library and laboratories at a cost of half
a milion. The scope of this institution may be best illustrated
by the following quotation from the act of incorporation: ''to
be located in the City of New York, for the purpose of estab-
lishing and maintaining a botanical garden and museum and
arboretum therein, for the collection and culture of plants,
flowers, shrubs and trees, the advancement of botanical
science and knowledge, and the prosecution of original re-
searches therein and in kindred subjects, for affording instruc-
.tion in the same, for the prosecution and exhibition of orna-
mental and decorative horticulture and gardening, and for the
entertainment, recreation and instruction of the people." "The
herbarium of Columbia College, comprising more than six hun-
dred thousand specimens, as well as the botanical library, will
be housed in the museum in such manner as to be most easily
accessible to those fitted and desirous of carrying on independ-
ent work. The conditions of organization are such that a high
efüciency for the entire equipment will be at once attained.
The establishment of this garden marks an important step in
the development of botany in America.

- BOTANIC. GARDENS.

o

BY

D. T. MACDOUGAL,

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA.

!

J REPRINTED FROM APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY
FOR DECEMBER, 1896, AND JANUARY, 1897.

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Reprinted from. Appletons Popular Scienee Monthly
Jor December, 1896, and. January, 1897.

IS (UI SSSEIRC S GSC DING:

By D. T. MACDOUGAL,

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA.

L—ORIGIN AND GENERAL ORGANIZATION.

HE term botanic garden is used to designate a limited area of
ground on which is grown a collection of plants of a large
number of species, arranged in a manner that will subserve some
educational, sssthetic, scientific, or economic purpose. At the
present time the utilitarian feature embraces the chief design of
but few gardens, yet it is to the economie purpose that these in-
stitutions owe their origin. It will be interesting in this connec-
tion to note the successive changes of organization by which these
institutions, at first as directly practical as possible, have come to
subserve the most complex and highly scientific uses.

After the discovery of the medical properties of plants, it must
have followed, in course of time, that representatives of the
species to which remedial properties were attributed should be
collected and grown in some place conveniently and readily
accessible as need demanded. The last step did not immediately
follow, however, since, among the conditions which were earlier
supposed to influence the potency of medicinal herbs, the locality in
which grown and the mysteries attending their collection were of
the greatest importance. The first authentic record of the intro-
duction of medicinal plants into cultivated plots of ground dates
no further back than the time of the elder Pliny (23-79 A. p.),
who writes of the garden of Antonius Castor, at Rome, in which
were grown a large number of medicinal plants. This step may
have been taken much earlier by the Greeks, Chinese, or Mexi-
cans, however. Later the Benedictine monks of northern Italy
paid great attention to the growing of remedial herbs, and devoted
an important proportion of the monastery gardens to this purpose.
'This practice was also carried beyond the Alps, and in 1030 a

CoPrrnicHT, 18960, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

2 BOTANIC GARDENS.

garden was in existence at the monastery of St. Gall, in Switzer-
land, a few kilometres distant from Lake Constance, which con-
tained sixteen plots occupied by medicinal plants. .A garden of
this character was founded in 1309, at Salerno, and another in
Venice in 1330. In 1309 the Benedictine monks founded an acad-
emy called * Civitas Hippocratica" at Monte Cassino, in Campania,
which appears to the writer to be among the earliest, if not the
first, school of medicine, and established in connection with it a
* physies garden." "Two centuries later, courses of lectures on
the * simples," as the unmixed preparations of herbs were termed,
were given in the greater number of Italian universities, under
the title of * lectura simplicium," by the professors of anatomy

View or rur LasmoRATORY IN THE OxroRD BorAN:ic GARDEN. After a photograph.

and surgery. It is interesting to note that the laboratory method
of handling the course in * cognitio simplicium" was not intro-
duced until the establishment of the botanic garden at the Uni-
versity of Padua, when, in addition to the lectures, exercises in
the demonstration of remedial plants growing in the garden were
given under the title of * ostencio simplicium."

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed the founda-
tion of many gardens in England, France, Germany, Holland, and
Sweden, some of which have had a continuous existence to this.
day. The garden of Bologna was founded in 1568; Leyden, 1577 ;
Leipsie, 1579; Montpellier, 1596; and Paris in 1597. The last.
named was organized for the purpose of determination of * what

BOTANIC GARDENS. 3

variations were possible in the style of bouquets worn at the royal
courts." "Then followed the establishment of the gardens at Gies-
sen in 1605, Strasburg in 1620, Jena in 1629, Oxford in 1632, Upsala
in 1667, and Chelsea in 1680.

The Oxford garden is the oldest in England, and a curious
feature in its organization is that during its entire term of exist-
ence—two hundred and sixty-four years—it has occupied leased
ground. 1t owes its existence to the munificence of the Earl of
Danby, who, besides making such alterations in the surface as
to seeure it from overflow, erected the wall that still incloses it,
at & cost of five thousand pounds. The portion of the garden
shown in the view of the Botanical Laboratory exhibits the
formal style of planting which prevailed in earlier times.

The Chelsea garden is situated near the Thames, about two
miles south from Hyde Park. It was formed by the Apotheca-
ries Guild of London, for the growth of plants for commercial
. purposes. Later it was.converted to its present use, that of
furnishing material to illustrate lectures in pharmacy and medi-
cine. Surrounded on all sides by brick buildings, and shaded
by smoke and fog, the rectangular plots of officinal plants ex-
hibit very strikingly the deleterious effects of an atmosphere
laden with acids. The would-be visitor to tkis quaint old place
must arm himself with an admission card obtained from the
Apothecaries Society, and from the creaking formalities attend-
ant upon the granting of such permission by unaccustomed but
polite officials it may be inferred that the casual sight-seer does
not often find his way into the place.

During the period inclusive of the foundation of the last-named
institutions plants began, however, to be considered from another
point of view—from a strictly scientific standpoint, and as inde-
pendent organisms. "While the Aristotelian school studied plants
in a manner closely approaching that of the present time, yet this
beginning of biological science had no logical continuation, and
during many succeeding centuries was completely lost to sight.
In the latter half of the sixteenth century two new forces were
manifest in the development of these institutions. Many of the
wealthier class who had private gardens began to enlarge them
by the addition of species because of their rarity, or because they
were brought from some foreign country, and in many instances
special collections were made chiefly for this purpose alone. Thus
it may be seen that beyond the useful properties of plants, per-
haps the first truly scientific idea of them concerned in a crude
way some of the principles of geographical distribution. This
phase of the subject received an increasing attention, and finally
assumed form and order upon the introduction of the Linnean sys-
tem of classification into Germany and that of Jussieu into France.

4 BOTANIC GARDENS.

Before this, however, a still more important development in
the method of study of plants had ensued, as is shown distinctly
in the botanical writings of the latter half of the sixteenth cen-
tury. The all-important fact of the natural affinities of plants

A

Reproduced by permission from the Minnesota Magazine, vol. ii, No. 1, 1895.

After a photograph.

Tnur BorAwro IwsrrrUTE AT LEIPSIO, SHOWING ÉENTRANCE FROM GARDEN, AND (GLASS COMPARTMENT FOR UsE IN lXPERIMENTS
wirH LiviNa PraNTs.

had gradually assumed distinetness—an idea not within the
grasp of any one of the herbalists of the time, whose accumulat-
ing and repeated descriptions of individual species gave rise to

BOTANIC GARDENS. 5

the perception of resemblance and difference in forms, and finally
to the idea of natural relationship. Thisidea finally became para-
mount: * All the foreign matter introduced into the descriptions
of plants by medical superstition and practical considerations
were seen to be of secondary importance, and were soon thrown
aside in the effort to establish a natural system of classification."

At the time of this * renaissance " of botany the gardens rep-
resented the ideas of geographical distribution and classification
in addition to the practical aspects of the subject. With the de-.
velopment of physiology and morphology the ideas thus brought
into prominence have found expression in the gardens, and the
purposes and usefulness of these institutions have steadily broad-
ened until all the more important phases of the subject are more
or less represented in the greater majority of instances.

In addition to the scientific and practical uses enumerated
above, the botanic garden has become a laboratory for the land-
scape artist, who may dispose of its masses of plants with a feel-
ing regard for their artistic value in outline and color, making a
most effective means of cultivation and gratification of public
taste. In many of the better known gardens, especially those
located in the great cities, this zesthetic feature has become a very
prominent and in many instances the predominant idea.

Only when a botanic garden is equipped with laboratories for
the furtherance of investigation, and sustains an organic relation
to a school or university, may it be said to attain its highest pos-
sibilities of usefulness, in the demonstration of the principles
governing the nature and development of one of the two great
groups of living things. When designed for this purpose the
collection of growing plants should represent as many of the prin-
cipal forms of vegetation as is possible. Since the probable num-
ber of living plants is estimated at half a million, it is obviously
impossible to bring together in any restricted area more than a
fraction of this number. A census of the flora of the section of
Bronx Park in New York, inclusive of about two hundred and
fifty acres, which is to be converted into a botanie garden, showed
that nearly à thousand species of ferns and seed-forming plants
were to be found on that area, only a small number of which were
introduced. Of these thousand species many were represented by
thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands of individuals. In
the conversion of the tract into a botanic garden, the gardener
will remove all but a few dozen, or perhaps a few hundreds, of
each species, which will be confined to certain designated limited
areas. In this way he will relieve each species from the compe-
tition of its neighbors, and so far as possible from the ravages of
insects and animals—the most telling factors in the struggle for |
existence—and obtain space for the introduction of a large num-

6 BOTANIC GARDENS.

ber of species. If these conditions alone determined the flora of
a region, the number of species which could be grown in a garden
would be determined only by its size and the number of plots it
might contain. It is found, however, that the substratum and
climate offer rigid limitations to an extension of the flora which
may be grown out of doors in any locality. "The gardener par-
tially overcomes this limitation by the use of glass houses, where
plants from nearly all parts of the world may be grown in spe-
cially prepared soils, and kept at temperatures resembling those
of the natural habitats of the plants. But under such conditions

|
|
|

'Tug Mars Parwx House or THE RovyAnL GARDENS AT Kkw, wirH LAKE rw FoREGROUND.

it becomes extremely difficult to properly adjust the moisture and
light, and only à comparatively small addition may thus be made
to the flora of a garden. "The conditions described above are such
that it has not been found possible to grow in one place more
than fifteen thousand species of the higher plants. It will be
found, moreover, that a large number of the species included are
not able to attain normal stature and appearance, and will thus be
useless in representing the form intended.

In consequence of this limitation of the number it is custom-
ary to supplement the living plants by collections of prepared
specimens of contemporaneous and fossil forms, in order to rep-
resent more completely the vegetation of the globe. The living
as well as the prepared plants are generally so assembled as to
demonstrate the descent and relationship of the different groups,
distribution over climatic and geographic zones, as well as their
principal biological adaptations to the factors to be met in their
native habitats. In addition to this strictly natural method of

BOTANIC GARDENS. /

treatment itis also customary to illustrate by proper groups the
forms which have become of special interest because of their food-
furnishing, textile-yielding, medicinal, or other economie value.

Fr Twy Mm mI cdm cU

ge ]

TEM

View or Maiw PonrioN or TEwPERATE HovsE or THE Rovar GARDENS AT Krew.
In proeess of repair. After a photograph.

In order to accomplish these purposes à suitably equipped garden
must contain, besides the necessary facilities for growing plants,
museum buildings arranged for the display of prepared specimens,
and if it designs to afford opportunities for research it must also
be furnished with a library and laboratory facilities.

There are in the world more than two hundred institutions
designed as botanic gardens, a large proportion of which are de-
voted to the cultivation of decorative plants, or subserve the use
of pleasure parks, while only à small number are organized on
the broader basis of the needs of the branches of botanic science.
"Thirty-six of these institutions are located in Germany, twenty-
three in Italy, twenty-two in France, thirteen in Austria-Hungary,
twelve in Great Britain and Ireland, and ten in the United States.

One of the most widely known is the Royal Botanic Garden at
Kew,located on the south bank of the Thames, six miles from
Hyde Park. The beginning of the Kew Gardens may be dated
from the formation of the exotic gardens of Lord Capel in 1759.
After a long series of changes in ownership and purpose, addi-
tions and alterations in plan, the gardens were transferred from a
private possession of the crown to a national institution in 1840,
with Sir William Hooker as the first director. About two hun-

8 BOTANIC GARDENS.

dred and seventy acres are included, of which seventy are planted
as à botanic garden and the remainder as an arboretum and
publie park. Besides the large number of well-planned conserva-
tories, greenhouses, museums, and other buildings, it contains a
number of structures which reflect somewhat of the varied his-
tory of the institution. The main palm house is three hun-
dred and sixty-two feet in length, with a central dome seventy
feet in height, and the temperate house has a total length of
five hundred and eighty feet, covering an area of an acre and a
half of ground. In addition,the garden contains fourteen smaller
glass houses. The herbarium and library, which occupy the old
palace of the King of Hanover, are probably the largest and most
complete in the world. While the research work carried on in
the gardens has been principally taxonomioc, by the co-operation
of the twenty-four gardens of which Kew is the organic head,
much of value has been accomplished in the acclimatization of
useful plants. "There is also located in the garden the Jodrell
Laboratory,in which some important results in physiology and

oido Ot ea ge, SCRIBE Ge Pa aper date

Turg CuwBERLAND GarE, Royan GARDENS AT KrEw, wirn GvanD ow Dvury.
Looking outward. After a photograph.

morphology have been reached. Its operations, however, are
greatly constrained by lack of suitable endowment.

I quote the following explanatory paragraph from a guide to
the grounds:

*T[t may be mentioned that Kew is not only a great educa-
tional establishment and pleasure resort, but also the recognized

BOTANIC GARDENS. 9

center of the various botanic gardens throughout the empire.
The partit has played in the introduction of the cinchona into
India, and in fostering various other important industries, is well
known. It may be described as the great botanical clearing
house of the empire. To it a large number of plants are con-
stantly being forwarded from all parts of the world to be named,
for which purpose a staff of botanists is provided, and the collec-
tion of dried plants, or herbarium, as well as the large botanical
library, is unrivaled throughout the world. In the same way the
collection of cultivated plants and trees, both hardy and exotic, is
the most perfect in existence."

The number of visitors to the gardens during the year amounts
to one and a half million, according to newspaper reports. The
gates, six in number, are open from noon until dusk. The ad-
ministration and care of
an establishment of this
character near a great
center of population re-
quire the closest organi-
zation and the most scru-
pulous attention to detail
on the part of the execu-
tive. In this matter tradi-
tion as well as current
testimony speaks of the
rigid manner in which

the numerous necessary Praw OF Kew GanpzNs. Explanatory references :
regula ose cu cuoc A, principal entrance from Kew Green ; B, tropical

house; C, timber Museum No. 3; D, water-lily
'lT'he general plan of the house; E, palm house; F, temperate house; G,

grounds is shown in the pagoda; H, Lion or Richmond Gate; I, ** North ?

adjoining map.
Whenorganized chief-

ly for research the botanic

gallery; J, lake; K, flagstaff; L, Unieorn Gate

(elosed) ;: M, Museum No. 1; N, Cumberland Gate ;
O, rockery; P, Museum No. 2; Q, new range;
R, suceulent house, greenhouse, and ferneries; S,
Brentford Gate; T, llesworth Gate; U, Victoria.

Gate, for Kew Gardens Station; V, bamboo gar-
den; W, azalea beds; X, Rhododendron Dell;
Y, ornamental water; Z, Kew Church.

garden differs in many
essential features from
the one described above.
From this point of view, and with regard to advantages of geo-
graphical position and botanical possibilities, the garden at Bui-
tenzorg in Java occupies a foremost position. Originally founded
by the Government of Holland in 1817, for the purpose of testing
the economie value of plants indigenous to the colonies of the
East Indies, and for the distribution of seeds, plants, etc., after
the customary manner of such institutions, it has widened its
seope and developed its facilities until almost all branches of
purely scientific and applied botany may be pursued to advan-
tage within it.

10 BOTANIC GARDENS.

The Buitenzorg Garden is situated within a few degrees of the
equator, and by reason of the elevated areas included within its
different divisions furnishes suitable conditions for the growth
in the open air of plants native to latitudes as high as forty or
fifty degrees. The luxuriance of the growth of plants in the
lower tropical area may be imagined when it is stated that the
average temperature is 85^ Fahrenheit, and the yearly rainfall
amounts to twelve feet. Of the eleven hundred acres available
for the purposes of the garden, an area of about one hundred
and seventy-three acres is devoted to experiments with cultivated
plants, one hundred and forty-eight to the botanic garden proper,
seventy-five to a mountain garden at an elevation of about seven
thousand feet, and the remainder is comprised in à mountain
forest. 'The laboratories are most excellently equipped for inves-
tigation in forestry, agricultural chemistry, and pharmacology, be-
sides the main divisions of the pure science. In addition to a very
complete library and herbarium, the administration has at its
service a lithographie establishment for the preparation of illus-
trations for its publications. It would be difficult to overestimate
the value of the results accomplished by the various divisions of
this institution, or to predict its future performances. By reason
of its facilities and resources 1t has become a Mecca for the bota-
nists of the world.

The foundation of a botanie garden in the United States dates
from that of John Bartram in Philadelphia in 1728, which is still
preserved in a modified form. Botany has been given an impor-
tant place in the college curriculum in America scarcely more
than sixty years. In comparatively recent years a few gardens
have come into existence, nearly all of which are still in a state of
rapid development. During this period of flux they have been
able only to afford facilities for general elementary instruction,
and to make possible original work in the classifieation of native
plants—a line of research which has been carried on more or less
steadily since the earlier settlements were made on this side of
the Atlantic. At the present time a few have begun to offer
opportunities for research in the more important branches of
botanical science. Among these may be mentioned the Missouri
Botanical Garden at St. Louis, connected with the Washington
University, the Botanical Garden and Arnold Arboretum of Har-
vard University, and the Botanic Garden of New York, now in
process of formation and to be connected with Columbia Uni-
versity.

The Botanic Garden of Harvard University was established
in 1805. It has an area of seven acres, on which are cultivated
about seven thousand species of plants, principally native. For
this reason it finds but one greenhouse necessary. The garden

BOTANIC GARDENS. 11

contains the famous herbarium and library in which Asa Gray
accomplished his work on the plants of North America. Themain
laboratories and museums are located in the university buildings.

Reprodueed from ** Der Botanisehe Gaiten's Lands Plantentuin

Festschrift zur Feier seines 75-jáhrigen Bestehens," 1893.

zu Buitenzorg, Java.

IsLAND AND LAKE IN. DurANIO GampEN, DuirENZORG, JAVA.

Some very important work on the morphology of the cryptogams
has been published from these laboratories. The Arnold Arbore-
tum of Harvard University is organized entirely independent of
the botanic garden. It includes an area of two hundred and fifty
acres, of which one hundred and sixty are planted with trees and

12 BOTANIC GARDENS.

shrubs. Itis furnished with à museum, herbarium, and library,
for the purpose of aiding study and research in forestry and den-
drology. By an arrangement with the city of Boston the arbore-
tum is thrown open to the inhabitants of that city as a public
park. The arboretum has nearly completed a description of
all the trees of North America north of Mexico in a series of
magnificently illustrated quartos, entitled The Silva of: North
America.

The foundation of the Missouri Botanic Garden at St. Louis is
due to the munificence of Mr. Henry Shaw, who bequeathed for
that purpose a tract of seven hundred and sixty acres of land and
other property in and near St. Louis. The scope of this institu-
tion may be best illustrated by the following quotation from the
will of its founder: * With a view to having for the use of the
publie à botanical garden, easily accessible, which should be for-
ever kept up for the cultivation and propagation of plants, flow-
ers, fruit and forest trees, and other productions of the vegetable
kingdom, and a museum and library connected therewith, and de-
voted to the same and to the science of botany, horticulture, and
allied objects." It is connected with the Washington Univer-
sity, which has a School of Botany also endowed by Mr. Shaw in
1885. The botanic garden occupies an area of forty-seven acres.
The grounds are laid out in such à manner as to be highly at-
tractive, and as many as thirty thousand people have passed the
gates in a single day. Much important work in plant taxonomy
has been accomplished in this institution, and the facilities for
work may be set forth in the following official statement:

*'lU'he herbarium is supplemented by a large collection of
woods, including veneer transparencies and slides for the micro-
scope. The library, containing about eight thousand volumes and
ten thousand pamphlets, includes most of the standard periodicals
and proceedings of the learned bodies, a good collection of mor-
phological and physiological works, nearly five hundred carefully
selected botanical volumes published before the period of Lin-
nzeus, an unusually large number of monographs of groups of
cryptogams and flowering plants, and the entire manuscript notes
and sketches representing the painstaking work of Engelmann.

*'T'he great variety of living plants represented in the garden
and the large herbarium, including the collections of Bernhardi
and Engelmann, render the garden facilities exceptionally good
for research in systematic botany, in which direction the library
also 1s exceptionally strong. "The living collections and library
also afford unusual opportunity for morphological, anatomical,
and physiological studies, while the plant-house facilities for ex-
perimental work are steadily increasing. The E. Lewis Sturte-
vant Pre-Linnsan Library, in connection with the opportunity

BOTANIC GARDENS. 13

afforded for the cultivation of vegetables and other useful plants,
is favorable also for the study of cultivated plants and the modi-
fications they have undergone."

The New York Botanic Garden is the most recent acquisition

View or MarN GnEENHnOoUSE IN THE Missovni BorAwic GARDEN, WiTH FLOWERING SPECIMENS
or AcAvE MExicANA IN FonEGROoUND. Reproduced by permission from the Fifth Annual
Report of the Missouri Botanieal Garden, 1894.

14 BOTANIC GARDENS.

to the list of these institutions in America. Its establishment
was authorized by the Legislature in 1891, but the enabling act
being defective, no steps could be taken in its organization until
1894. To comply with the act of incorporation, a sum of two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars was raised by private sub-
scription, and then the Commissioners of Public Parks of New
York City were authorized to set aside two hundred and fifty
acres of Bronx Park, and the Board of Estimate and Apportion-
ment was directed to issue bonds amounting to five hundred
thousand dollars, to be used in the construction of the necessary
buildings, greenhouses, museums, laboratories, etc.

The scope of this institution may be best illustrated by the
following extract from the act of incorporation: * To be located
in the city of New York for the purpose of establishing and
maintaining a botanical garden and museum and arboretum
therein, for the collection and culture of plants, flowers, shrubs,
and trees, the advancement of botanical science and knowledge,
and the prosecution of original research therein and in kindred
. subjects, for affording instruction in the same, for the prosecution
and exhibition of ornamental and decorative horticulture and
gardening, and for the entertainment, recreation, and instruction
of the people." "The site of the garden embraces an area of such
wide diversities of soil and slope, marsh, meadow, shores, and
granite ridges, that it will afford peculiarly fitting conditions for
the growth of an extensive flora in the open air. As mentioned
above, about one thousand species of plants, nearly all of which
were native, were found on the inclosed area at the time of or-
ganization of the garden. Through a co-operative arrangement
entered into with Columbia University, the herbarium of this in-
stitution, numbering over six hundred thousand specimens, as well
as the library, will be deposited with the garden, and most of the
research and graduate work of the university in botany will be
carried on in the museum building. The plans of the museum
building are such as to offer ample facilities for laboratories in
all the divisions of the subject, while the glass houses promise
to surpass anything in existence at the present time. "The condi-
tions of organization are such that a high efficiency for the entire
equipment will be at once attained. "The establishment of this
garden marks an important step in the development of botany in
America.

Perhaps the greatest opportunity for furthering botanical in-
vestigation that has existed since the beginning of the science
now confronts the American universities in the proposal to estab-
lish a botanic garden and laboratory in the tropics. "The real
value of such an institution may be best understood when it is
stated that botany in its present elementary condition, especially

BOTANIC GARDENS. 15

with reference to the physiology and ecology of plants, is based
chiefly on the results of investigations carried on in botanical
gardens and laboratories situated in the northern hemisphere
between the parallels of forty and fifty-five degrees. In the
herbaria it has been possible to study normal specimens of pre-
pared plants from the equator to the poles, and consequently the
systematic relationships are much better known than any other
characteristic. Morphology has shared these advantages to some
extent.

In the study of the physiology, ecology, and other branches of
the science in which living plants are necessary, attention has been
necessarily confined to those indigenous to a zone fifteen degrees
in width, extending across one small continent and half way across
another, together with introduced species growing under more or
less abnormal conditions in gardens and conservatories. As the
science progresses it is becoming more and more apparent that
many of the generalizations based upon investigations carried on
under such circumstances are incapable of general application,
and that before a permanent foundation for the science can be
laid, research along all lines must be extended to include the most
highly developed forms, in the primitive habitat of the plant king-
'" dom,in the tropies. The principles of the relations of plants and
their relations to the animal kingdom may only be attained by
the study of undisturbed communities of plants in the natural
groupings resultant from the struggle for existence. Here are
to be found such rapidity of growth and metabolism that the
adaptive possibilities of the organism reach their highest ex-
pression. :

The centers of botanical activity in Europe are so far removed
from a tropical flora that only occasionally does a transatlantic
investigator find time and opportunity to extend his researches
to include normal tropical forms. To do this he must visit
Buitenzorg or some other garden nearly half way round the
world. ;

The center of botanical activity in America has at its very
doors a tropical region (in the West Indies), unsurpassed in every
feature, which may be reached in four or five days from any im-
pertant city in the country. The establishment of a laboratory
and garden in any convenient locality would not only be of un-
told value in the general development of botanical science, but it
would place within easy reach of the investigatoror graduate stu-
dent in American universities facilities unequaled by that of any
other country.

The European botanist would also find a laboratory in the-
American tropies much more easily accessible than those of the
antipodes. The foundation of such an institution would be of

16 BOTANIC GARDENS.

direct benefit to the greater number of active botanists, and would
go far toward making America the scene of the greatest develop-
ment of the biology of one of the two great groups of living organ-
isms.

IL—TÜBINGEN AND ITS BOTANISTS.

id ien botanic garden connected with the old Würtemberg Uni-
versity at Tübingen is worthy of special notice, because of
its history and its importance as a center of research in the biol-
ogy of plants at the present time.

The university with which itis connected was endowed more
than four hundred years ago by the reigning house of Würtem-
berg, and during the entire period of its existence it has enjoyed
the exclusive patronage of the grand ducal and later the royal
family, as it is the only higher institution of learning within the
kingdom. Set as it is among a hardy and virile people, it has
been the scene of many notable mental victories over tradition
and superstition. It has always held a position in the forefront
of human advancement, and its splendid achievements mark
epochs in human thought. Here have originated great schools or
methods of thought in the different branches of human knowl-
edge. Bauer in philosophy and von Mohl in botany have each
forwarded research in his respective line in a manner that can
not be measured or easily estimated.

The subject of botany in this institution received its first
attention from the side of medical science. With the introduc-
tion of the laboratory method of instruction, actual demonstra-
tions of plants were used to supplement the lectures. "To meet
the need of material of living plants the garden was founded in
due time, and it has at successive periods represented quite accu-
rately the development and extension of botanical science,—a de-
velopment to which the botanists of Tübingen have largely con-
tributed. The subject of botany here has always been in the
hands of workers of the first rank, who each in turn have mate-
rially advanced the frontiers of knowledge of the biology of plant
life, for a period extending over three and a half centuries.

The first lectures on plants, dealing with their medical proper-
ties, were given at the university by Leonard Fuchs, from 1535
until his death in 1566, although it was not until a century later
(1662) that the garden was founded. Fuchs occupied a promi-
nent position in the history of ancient botany, since he made the
first attempt to establish a system of terminology, and further-
more he was the first to base descriptions of species upon facts
obtained from an actual examination of the plants themselves.
In his Historia Stirpiwm about five hundred species are figured

BOTANIC GARDENS. 17

and described, and the woodcuts in this quaint old herbal are of
value even at this time. It is to be borne in mind, however, that
Fuchs had formed no idea of the natural relationships of plants.
The species given in the herbal are arranged in alphabetical
order. It seems almost inconceivable at the present day, yet the
descriptions of plants made by botanists in the period preceding
Braunfels (1530) and Fuchs were not taken from nature, but were
borrowed from still earlier writers, and supplemented by addi-
tions drawn purely from fancy and colored by the superstition
of the time.

The establishment of the garden in 1662 was purely for the
purpose of conserving medicinal plants, and only such species
were cultivated as could be
grown in the open air. 'The art
of growing plants in artificially
heated glass houses was not un-
derstood at that time. "The gar-
den occupied a plot of ground
lying on the banks of the Neckar
in whatis now the heart of the
city of Tübingen, where it re-
mained until 1805, when it was
removed to its present position.

The lectures in botany in the
university took on a new dignity
when a separate chair was de-
voted to the subject by the ap--
pointment of Rudolph Jacob
Camerarius as extraordinary
professor and director of the bo-
tanic garden in 1688. He was
afterward promoted and re-
mained at the university until Smox ScmwexpExER, Professor of Botany
his death, in 1728. Camerarius EA d ce DUM
made a most notable addition to zuck, Berlin.
botanical science by the actual
experimental demonstration of the principal facts in the pollina-
. tion of plants (1691 to 1694). Sachs says in his history of botany :
* Camerarius had observed that a female mulberry tree once bore
fruit, though no male tree (amentaceis floribus) was in the neigh-
borhood, but that the berries contained only abortive and empty
seeds, which he compared to the addled eggs of a bird. His at-
tention was aroused, and he made his first experiment on another
dicecious plant (Mercurialis amnua). He took, in the end of May,
two female specimens of the wild plant (they were usually called

male, but he knew them to be female) and set them in pots apart
2

ES BOTANIC GARDENS.

from others. The plants throve, and the fruit was abundant and
filled out, but when half ripe they began to dry up, and not one
produced perfectseeds. His com-
munication on this subject is
dated December 28, 1691." "The
importance of his discovery was
not recognized at the time, and
his conclusions were accepted in
afigurativesense only. Not until
the end of the following century
was his experimental evidence
used as a basis for further re-
searches by Kólreuter. Linnzeus,
to whom great credit is given by
many writers for his share in the
development of the theory of the
sexuality of plants, ignored the
facts disclosed by Camerarius,
and arrived at identical conclu-
sions in a purely deductive man-
ner, arguing from the necessities
of the case.
| ! After the demise of Camera-
proe cd Professor of PSU rius he was succeeded by his son
1887. After x bord IS WC "Hori Alexander. Later the lectures on
nung, Tübingen. the subjects of botany and chem-
istry were given by one professor.
After a short interregnum the subject was once more in the hands
of a master spirit in the person of Joseph Gaertner, who was
called to the chair of botany in 1760. Gaertner remained at Tübin-
gen eight years, going to St. Petersburg to accept the chair of
botany in 1768. He returned to Calwe in 1770, and published
shortly afterward his De F'ructibus et Seminibus Plantarum,
which may be truly termed an epoch-making work. "The study
of fruits and seeds had languished for more than a century, and
Gaertner came to it with a mind singularly free from prejudice.
He was aware of the real value of fruits for the arrangement of
plants in a natural system, but he did not attempt to found a
system on such material alone. Having at hand a most extensive
collection of plants from around the world, which he studied with
a persistence that brought him nearly to blindness, his book is an
inexhaustible mine of facts and a guide to the morphology of
fruits and seeds. His collection of material and microscope are
still preserved in the botanical museum.
Thelectures in botany at the university were placed in the
hands of Friedrich von Kielmeyer as professor of natural phi-

BOTANIC GARDENS. 19

losophy in 1805. At this time the garden was removed to its pres-
ent location, on the banks of the Ammer, in the north western part
of the city, and shortly cold and warm houses for plants and a
residence for the university gardener were erected. Kielmeyer
was sueceeded by Schubler in 1817, and hein turn by Hugo von
Mohl in 1835.

It would be difficult to overestimate the value of the work
accomplished by von Mohl during the thirty-seven years (1835 to
1872) in which he was professor of botany at Tübingen. "This
period does not include the entire time of his activity in this
place, however. In 1826 the faculty of medicine offered a prize
for an essay on the nature of tendrils and climbing plants, and a
thesis by von Mohl, who was then a student, won the prize. This
academic essay, written at the age of twenty-two, remained the
clearest presentation of the subject until it was taken up by the
elder Darwin in 1865. During the half century in which he was

HERMANN VóocurmING (sitting, facing front) and Group of Workers in Botanie Institute in
Summer of 1896; Professor of Botany and Director of the Botanie Garden since 1887.
After a photograph.

a leading figure in the botanical world, he used a purely inductive
method of research, and by a long series of many-times repeated
observations established manifold phenomena and facts which he
welded into a coherent mass by a logie so relentless that he was
incapable of being led astray into fanciful theories and dazzling
speculations. Such a method enabled him to take a prominent
part in the destruction of the chimerical teaching of the nature

20 BOTANIC GARDENS.

philosophy, especially in regard to the doctrine of the metamor-
phosis of plants. Furthermore, he succeeded in establishing the
principles of anatomy so clearly that a rational system of mor-
phology became possible for the first time. So important and
basal were his demonstrations concerning the real nature of the
primordial utricle that by many botanists he is said to have dis-
covered protoplasm (1846). Von Mohl, with Schlechtendal, estab-
lished the Botanische Zeitung in 1842. . The list of his works in-
cludes ninety titles, embracing subjects in every department of
the science. During his administration at Tübingen the garden
was enlarged by three additions, to its present dimensions, occu-
pying an irregular tract of land on both banks of the Ammer;
important additions were made to the glass houses in the garden,
and theinstitute building was erected in 1846. Perhaps no greater
tribute can be paid to von Mohl's broad conception of the scope
and needs of botany than the fact that this institute building
erected fifty years ago, remains practically unaltered to the pres-
ent day, and is still found fairly available for the purposes of
modern investigation.

Upon the death of von Mohl, in 1872, he was succeeded by
Hofmeister, who died after having held the post but five years.
Hofmeister had perhaps accomplished his more important results
before his stay at Tübingen. Like von Mohl, he used an induc-
tive method of investigation, and he as well made enormous con-
tributions to the material facts upon which many of our present
generalizations in morphology rest. The results of the investi-
gations published in his Vergleichende Umtersuchungen in 1849
remain to-day superior to anything achieved in descriptive botany.
To Hofmeister must be ascribed, among other important embryo-
logical results, the discovery of the alternation of generations in
plants, and by the use of his phylogenetic mode of study the ideas
concerning natural affinities of the groups of cryptogams and
phanerogams underwent an almost total alteration. His estab-
lishment of the genetic relationship of these great subdivisions
resulted in the overthrow of the prevailing belief in the con-
stancy of species.

Prof. Simon Schwendener succeeded Hofmeister as director of
the institute and garden in 1877. He,as wellas his two successors,
are still in the midst of active work, and it is by no means easy to
forecast the final value of the results of their investigations upon
the development of the subject. Schwendener has made very
important contributions to the biology of lichens, phyllotaxis,
besides a long series of contributions of the first rank in the do-
main of morphology and physiology. Among these his Mechan-
ische Princip in der Baw der Monocotylen is of the greatest im-
portance. Schwendener remained but a year at Tübingen, going

BOTANIC GARDENS. 21

thence to the University of Berlin, where he vigorously continues
his researches. In consequence of his short stay but little of his
work was accomplished at Tübingen.

The direction of the institute and garden was assumed by Prof.
Wilhelm Pfeffer in 1878, who remained in the place nine years.
The splendid results accomplished by himself and students dur-
ing that time are published in a set of two volumes entitled Un-
tersuchungen aus den botanische Institut zu Tübingen. 'The work
dealt with the principal problems of physiology in growth, tur-
gescence, secretion, movements, respiration, and nutrition. In
1887 Pfeffer removed to Leipsic. Both before and after his stay

Virgw or Parx Horses, Wogk Hoows, wp HxemRBáARIUM, rN AvTUMN. Áfter a photolitho-
graph in ** Die unter der Regierung seiner Majestát des Koónigs Karl an der Universitzt
Tuübinzen erriehteten und erweiterten Institut der naturwissenschatilichen und der medi-
zinischen Fakultat," 1889. By permission.

at Tübingen he made most important contributions to the science,
especially with regard to the physical and chemical properties of
plant tissues, notably in osmosis and turgidity, and also in the
transformations of energy within the organism. His laboratories
and lecture room are thronged with students from all over the
world, many of whom are Americans.

The present director of the institute and garden, Prof. Her-
mann Vóchting, succeeded Pfeffer in 1887. Prof. Vóchting may
be said to be to some extent a representative of the modern ideal-
istic school with which Braun, his old teacher, was identified.
His work, however, resembles that of the idealists only so far as
to exhibit the immense value of comprehensive discussions of the
results of careful inductive inquiry, not only in the establishment

22 BOTANIC GARDENS.

of individual facts, but in the employment of these facts in their
relations to the most general notions and their capabilities for the
foundation of new and more comprehensive theories—a method of
investigation productive of the highest results in all departments
of biological science. One of the conclusions reached in this man-
ner, which asserts the * polarity " of the plant cell, is at present
beyond the generallevel of the subject. Polarity will doubtless
be recognized as one of the most important physiological proper-
ties of protoplasm when the advance of the subject makes its ap-
preciation possible. The researches of Vóchting have dealt prin-

Tur Borawic IwsrrrTUTE, VrEw rROM WILHELMSTRASSE.
After a photolithograph, by permission.

cipally with the physiology of movement and what might briefly
be termed physiological morphology.

The garden is located in the northeastern part of Tübingen in
western Würtemberg. It lies at an elevation of about one thou-
sand feet, on the plateau encircled by the Schwarzwald, in latitude
48? 30' north. Near it are hills covered with forests of pine, which
rise two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet above it, while to
the southward, twenty miles away, the Swabian Alps reach to a
height of twenty-five hundred feet, in consequence of which the
night temperature falls far below that of the day. .A low win-
ter temperature of —30^ C., and a summer limit of 25? to 28^ C.,
help to make a climate which resembles that of southern Michigan
in many respects. 'The area inclosed amounts to about two and
six tenths hectares of nearly level land on both sides of the banks
of the Ammer, a small tributary to the Neckar. The grounds are
planted in the system of Eichler, modified, however, to meet the

BOTANIC GARDENS. 23

ecological and sesthetic requirements. A small portion is devoted
to aquatic plants, a second to an arboretum, another to an experi-
mental plot inclosed and accessible only to workers. In the entire
garden the instinctive ability of the naturalist is shown in the
selection of natural conditions for the specimens of the various
flora represented, and the alpinum may be regarded as a triumph
in the art of artificial culture.

The alpinum is laid out in the northwestern part of the garden
on à rectangular plot of ground one hundred and ninety feet in
length and nine feet in width, near a stone wall seven feet high
and parallel to its length. On this plot are piled the rocks and
Soil necessary for the culture of plants, in an uneven ridge, which
in one place is six feet in height. The materials used were princi-
pally the native stalactite limestone and gravelly soil and granite
from the Black Forest, forty miles distant. The limestone is
peculiarly suitable for the lower Alpine plants and lithophytes,
furnishing, as it does, innumerable cavities for the reception of
soil and secure foothold for. plants which cling directly to the
rock. It has been found that the species from the higher Euro-
pean Alps refused to grow on such rock, and hence the granite
was procured for the section devoted to this group. The entire
structure is in many respects an admirable imitation of an east-to-
west mountain ridge. The northern side affords many shaded
crevices, and more or less shade to the whole is given by a num-
ber of small trees near by.

The most difficult problems which have confronted the gar-
dener in the construction and management of the alpinum have
been those connected with the water supply. The water content
of such rocky soils is of course extremely small and needs almost
constant replenishment. In Nature this is done by water from
the melting snows above. Here it has been accomplished by a
system of branching pipes with many openings below and above
the surface, and à flow is allowed during the greater part of the
day. The drainage is carried away by cement conduits, and in
. one place forms an Alpine lake eight feet in length and five feet
in width, which furnishes in its waters and on the overhanging
cliffs admirable conditions for a very rich flora. Near the lake
are growing several specimens of Edelweiss, which here becomes
somewhat longer stemmed than on its native cliffs, or in the
Alpine gardens where it is cultivated to satisfy the thirst of the
tourist for mementoes of * hazardous " ascents.

Many of the Alpine plants are quite intolerant of lime salts
and grow best on the granite rocks, but the water supply used
here is taken directly from the city system and is very richly
charged with these substances, and as a consequence the cul-
ture of some of the plants of the higher slopes is impos-

24 BOTANIC GARDENS.

sible. This diffieulty might only be overcome at some cost by
a system of tanks for the storage of rain water, which would
furnish exactly the natural conditions for a large number of
species.

It is somewhat surprising to learn that in this area of about
two thousand square feet more than twelve hundred species
are successfully cultivated, almost all of which are perennials.
In some places three or even four kinds are grown on a square
foot of actual surface—a striking example of a form of inten-
sive cultivation. It must not be supposed, however, that none
but Alpine species are grown. .A glance at the labels will show

vr » ud Y n M :
Ju We

CongxER or LecrURE HarL; View rRox GARDEN. After a photograph.

TE.

that many are at home far southward in the temperate zone. It
1s interesting to note that all of the North American species of
Cypripedium are grown here successfully. As a matter of fact
the alpinum offers a wider range of conditions than any other
method of cultivation, and in some form similar to that described
might offer suitable conditions of growth for species fairly repre-
sentative of the flora of a region extending across twenty degrees
of latitude.

The glass houses are of the usual form, and include a palm
house two hundred feet in length, to which are attached work-
rooms and the herbarium building. The immediate supervision
of the cultural department of the garden is in the hands of the
head gardener, who is provided with a commodious dwelling and
office building near the arboretum. He has under his direction a

BOTANIC GARDENS. 25

force of men varying from eight to fifteen with the requirements
of the season.

The institute is an oblong brick structure, one hundred and
seventy feet in length by sixty-five in width, standing in the
southeastern corner of the grounds. "This building is two storied
in part, the second story being devoted to the use of the director
and his family. The first floor accommodates the director's
offices, private laboratory, and experimental rooms, dark rooms,
laboratories for physiology and morphology, the lecture room,
and a museum containing the Gaertner collection.

The laboratories are supplied with a set of physiological appa-
ratus embracing the standard forms, a large number of which
were originally designed to facilitate researches undertaken here
in the last twenty years. The museum contains the von Mohl
collection of microscopes, which represents the development of
this instrument from the time of Joseph Gaertner to that of Hof-
meister,more than one.hundred years. The Gaertner museum
contains the carpological collections of Joseph Gaertner, on which
his work De Fructibus, etc.,was based,in the labeled bottles as
prepared by him. For greater safety these bottles were inclosed
" inlarger bottles and labeled by von Mohl, and the thoughtful ob-
server looks forward to the time when a third casing of glass
will be added to protect the prized handwriting of von Mohl. In.
this museum are also to be found the dried specimens of hybrids
and seeds, drawings, manuscripts, and published works of Karl
Friedrich Gaertner, and à large number of preparations for the
microscope made by von Mohl and Hofmeister. The commodious
lecture room is provided with all necessary appliances for suc-
cessful demonstrations—charts, prepared specimens, wood and
paper models, etc.

The investigator who comes here to undertake the solution of
some problem in botany meets a body of congenial workers whose
earnest enthusiasm is quickly contagious. He is furnished with
ample space in well-lighted rooms and any necessary apparatus.
If it is necessary to construct temporary apparàtus to carry for-
ward his experiments, a stock of material is at hand and he may
have the intelligent assistance of the * Hausmeister," who has had
a score of years of experience in such work in this institute. If
the problem requires the application of delicate or complex ma-
chinery, he may call to his assistance Herr Eugen Albrecht—
* Universitáts-mechaniker "— whose skil| in designing effective
apparatus for use in the physiology of plants and animals is
known round the world. 'The library of the institute and that of
the director contain a large number of works of the more promi-
nent botanical authors, and a blank form properly filled will bring
to his desk almost anything bearing upon his work from the

26 BOTANIC GARDENS.

library of the university, containing two hundred thousand vol-
umes, in an hour or two. Outside the laboratories lies a garden
stocked with an immense variety of well-grown plants represent-
ing great diversities of form and habitat, and presenting suitable
material for the solution of a number of the more important open
questions in the subject. Stretching away on every hand is the
rich flora of the limestone hills, crested by coniferous forests.
The subalpine vegetation of the Swabian Alps may also be
reached by an excursion of a few kilometres.

The forests, lying within half an hour's walk of the garden,
embrace examples of the royal,communal, and private systems

|

|
|
|
|
|
|
|

GnovP or MicRoscorEs FROM THE VON Mour CorrEcriow. The upright wooden stand on
the right was used by Gaertner. The modern form on the left belonged to Hofieister.
The remaining stands were designed or used by von Mohl. After a photograph.

of management, and afford splendid opportunities for study in
dendrology.

The most valuable part of the worker's experience, with such
ample facilities at hand, however, is that which comes from the
advice, encouragement, and suggestions of the director. Con-
stantly engaged in the most laborious research for more than a
quarter of a century, he has a vivid and sympathetic appreciation
of the difficulties which beset the investigator, and his keen in-
sight into the physiology of plant life leads him quickly to the
solution of the problem in hand. His time and patience are
unstintingly given to any who may have the slightest claim
upon them, and the many times repeated assertion that the Ger-
man professor gives a minor portion of his time only to his
students is certainly ungrounded here. 'The writer is not ac-
quainted with any American laboratory for botany in which the
professor in charge devotes a greater proportion of his time to
the student. In earlier times the Tübingen professors carried

: BOTANIC GARDENS. 27;

this devotion to the interests of the student to such a degree that
it amounted to a fault, and published their own researches under
the names of their students. "This generous, unselfish, and high-
minded attitude is an inheritance in the Botanic Institute at
Tübingen, and is characteristic of the people among whom it is-
situated.

JUNE 15, 1900. ]

. In dead cells caffeine never produces pro-
teosomes, If we treat Spirogyra, which is
an excellent object for studying the behavior
of the proteosomes, for one minute with a
dilute solution of iodine in potassium iodide
the globules may still be produced immedi-
ately afterwards but not after ten minutes.
It can easily be shown that the substance
has not passed to the outside by osmosis,
since the liquid surrounding the treated
algse does not show any reaction with caf-
feine. Various tests proved that the pro-
teosomes consist of protein matter, but in
most cases there are impurities present, es-
pecially tannin, a facet which has misled
Pfeffer and some of his students so far as to
assume these proteosomes to be merely com-
pounds of tannin with common albumin and
with caffeine. It is evident that such com-
pounds would not exist in two different mod-
ifications and would not change their entire
behavior with the death of the cells as above
described. Pfeffer's objections are unten-
able, as repeatedly demonstrated. He has,
for example, assumed that on the death of
the cells certain compounds leave the pro-
toplasm and upon entering into the vacuole
cause there a change of the proteosomes.
But it is easy to convince one's self that
proteosomes can also often be produced in
the cytoplasm itself, especially in the case
of Spirogyra. Since these proteosomes re-
main in the cytoplasm also unchanged so
long as the cells are alive, the assertion of
Pfeffer is groundless. He has also argued
that the phenomenon in question, viz, the
produetion of proteosomes, may be due to
the neutralization of the acid cell sap, but
we have shown that the cell sap of Sp?rogyra
has no acid reaction* and nevertheless it
yields frequently numerous proteosomes.T

It is to be regretted that many plant phy-
* Botanische Zeitung, 1884.
T À eareful observer will not confound these easily

changing proteosomes produced only in living cells (as
Dr. Albert F. Woods has suggested) with other glo-

SCIENC3.

935
siologists rely upon the declarations made
by some ' authority! instead of forming their
own opinion from an unbiased critical in-
vestigation. "The history of science shows
that erroneous conceptions are often sus-
tained for along time in scientific circles
simply because a man of a certain influence
has defended them. The recognition of the
genuine respiration of green plants furnishes
a good illustration to this remark. Liebig,
by weight of his authority, wiped out this
truth for 20 years from science.

OscaAR LoEw.
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

i .

THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN.* wW

'TaE corporate body known as the New
York Botanical Garden was created by an
act of the legislature approved by the gov-
ernor A pril 28, 1891, and amended Mareh 7,
1894. "This association was ealled into ex-
istence '' for the purpose of establishing and
maintaining a botanical garden and mu-
seum and arboretum therein, for the collec-
tion and culture of plants, flowers, shrubs
and trees, the advancement of botanical
science and knowledge, and the prosecution
of original researches therein and in kin-
dred subjects, for affording instruction in
the same, for the prosecution and exhibition
of ornamental and decorative horticulture
and gardening, and for the entertainment,
recreation and instruction of the people."

By the same aet the Board of Commis-
sioners of the Department of Public Parks
were authorized to set aside two hundred
and fifty acres of Bronx Park, and erect suit-
able museum and other buildings at a cost

bular masses produced by hypochlorite of soda upon
the protoplasm of dead cells. Such formations and
their distinction from proteosomes were described by
Woods in SCIENCE, April, 1899.

* Written by the request of the Editor of SCIENCE.
See also article on same subjeet by author in the
Popular Science Monthly. for June, 1900;

936 SCIENCE. [N.S. Vor. XI. No. 285.

of not more than five hundred thousand which was to carry out the purposes for
dollars on condition that the corporation which it came into existence.
should raise the sum of two hundred and 'The subscription of the $250,000 required

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fifty thousand dollars within seven years. by the Act was completed, and the land
After the completion of the buildings these ^ was set aside in 1895.
were to be handed over to the corporation The active work of organization of the

JUNE 15, 1900.]

Garden was begun in 1896, and Dr. N. L.
Britton was elected Director-in-chief in that
year. "The perfecting of the plans for the
buildings, roads, driveways, walks and plan-
tation occupied the greater part of the at-
tention of the management during this year
and thenext. "The actual erection of the
most important of these structures, the mu-
seum building, was begun in the Spring of
1898, ground having been broken for it late
in 1897, and it was handed over to the
board of managers of the Garden in March,
1900. During this constructive period many
additions were made to the staff, and a
: large amount of material suitable for the
museums was accumulated, while much
progress has been made in the building of
driveways and the development of the plan-
tations.

'The area included within the Garden has
been, and will be freely accessible to the
publie at all times, for the enjoyment of the
beauties of the wild woodlands, and of the
eollections of living plants, but the comple-
tion of the museum and horticultural houses
marks the beginning of the full activity of
the institution and a brief description of the
manner in which it discharges its chief
functions may be of interest.

The collections of living and prepared
plants in the plantations and museums are
arranged to present information on the form,
relationship, mode of life, habit, and general
biological characters of the principal types
of vegetation in such manner as to be capa-
ble of comprehension by persons unac-
quainted with the technical aspects of bot-
any. A number of special groups of plants
have been established in suitable places in
the Garden. The trees arein the arboretum
of the Bronx on the side and summit of à
long ridge ; unassorted and reserve material
of all kinds is kept in the nurseries on the
eastern slopes of the same ridge ; the salice-
tum is established on the border of a marsh
in the northern end of the Garden giving

SCIENCE.

93'T

the willows and poplars the conditions under
which they grow best. "The fruticetum oc-
eupies an adjoining upland plain, affording
space for the cultivation of a large number
of shrubs, while the eonifers are located on
slopes to the westward of the hemlock forest.
The viticetum is along the western edge of
the forest, and the trellises of logs and tim-
bers extending for a length of six hundred
feet give suitable support to the vines.
The herbaceous collection occupies an open
glade to the westward of the forest and lies
between two graniteridges. Itistraversed
through the middle by a small stream
widened at places into lagoons for aquatic
forms. About twenty-two hundred species
are now in eultivation in this plantation.
The wide border plantations which are es-
tablished along the boundaries also offer
opportunities for the growth of a great
variety of trees, herbs and shrubs, and serve
as screens and supplementary nurseries.

The horticultural houses, also erected by
the city for the Garden and now essentially
completed are located in the western part
of the grounds at some distance from, and
facing the museum. . À palm house with a
total height of dome of ninety feet is the
central feature from which lower ranges ex-
tend on either side making a total length of
front of five hundred and twelve feet.

The collections of living plants are ar-
ranged in the same system as the synoptic
collection in the museum. . Every plantation
except the nurseries and boundary borders
contains species of the same general habit,
and the horticultural houses are used for the
eultivation offorms which may notendurethe
outdoor climate of this locality. Not only
will the plants from warmer zones be grown
under glass, but when it is desired to de-
velop native species out of their season they
may be forced and brought to full develop-
ment and bloom in the winter.

The museum is a fireproof building of
brick, stone, and terra cotta, 308 by 110

feet, located in the western part of the
grounds near the Bedford Park station of
the Harlem division of the New York Cen-
tralrailroad. The building has a basement
floor and three stories with a total floor
area of nearly two acres, and window open-
ing to half this amount, thus securing a

SCIENCE.

[N.S. Vor. XI. No. 285.

of from one hundred to five hundred. Ad-
joining the lecture hall are two large exhi-
bition halls which are designed for hortieul-
tural shows and other temporary displays.

The first floor of the museum is devoted
to the display of economie plants and their
useful produets. Glass fronted cases with

The Museum Building—New York Botanical Garden.

good illumination, so highly desirable in à
museum. A lecture theater occupies the
basement floor of the western end, offering
seating capacity for seven hundred hearers
and furnished with all necessary appliances
for the illustration ofleetures. During the
spring and autumn, courses of popular lec-
tures are given on Saturday afternoons
which have already drawn an attendance

movable and flying shelving are arranged
in aleoves opening on the windows. Only
about one-third of the case equipment of
the building has as yet been set up. Dried
specimens on herbarium sheets, conserved
material in tubes, and jars, dry, and in form-
alin, and drawings, illustrate the method of
preparation and appearance of the deriva-.
tives. It is of course utterly impossible

JUNE 15, 1900.]

to demonstrate all the economic plants of
the world or make even an approximately
complete display within the space of a build-
ing, but the temporary installation now in
place, represents many of the more impor-
tant foods, drugs, timbers, woods, fibers,
gums, waxes, resins, oils, sugars, starches,
poisons, utensils, etc. "The proper develop-
ment of this collection requires a great
amount of the most careful labor, and the
eurator has been fortunate in securing the
co-operation of importers, producers, and
manufacturers in the addition of exhibits.

'The second floor contains a type exhibit
of the vegetation of the globe arranged in
families in the Engler and Prantl sequence.
Specimens dry and in liquid preservatives,
fruits, seeds, models, drawings and photo-
graphs are used to place the concept of the
species before the observer. A set of
hinged frames on standards contain the
plants growing naturally within a hundred
miles of New York City, and these are
placed in their proper places in the series.
Thus a ease of the main series contains a
representative of the family Violace:, and
the frames near by display the local mem-
bers of same family. "

A number of mieroscopes of special de-
sign have been constructed for the purpose
of displaying permanently the simpler and
more minute organisms, or the structure of
the higher forms.

The preparation of the material used in
the exhibits is carried on in a number of
rooms in the basement floor, and the mem-
bers of the staff engaged in this work are
assisted by a cabinet maker and printer.

The entire area of the Garden has been
handled most sympathetically by those in
charge of the architectural features of the
Garden. 'The buildings were erected in the
more open western part of the grounds,
which offered the least valuable landscape
features, and the surface around them has
been improved by plantings. 'The natural

SCIENCE.

939

beauties of the tract have been most zeal-
ously guarded from disturbances of all
kinds. "The attractive panorama of wild
woodland and stream offered to the artist
and lover of nature have been left absolutely
untouched, but made more valuable by
increased ease and safety of access. "Thus
to the general publie, the Botanical Garden
offers all the privileges enjoyed by them
in the original park together with the in-
teresting displays offered by the large special
collections of interesting plants in the plan-
tations and hortieultural houses, as well as
the exhibits in the museum. . The inecreas-
ingly large number of visitors attests the
popularity of this feature of the institution.

Another class of constituents consists of
the patrons, fellows, life members and an-
nual members of the Garden, who now
number over nine hundred. A person be-
comes an annual member on invitation of
the Board of Managers and payment of
ten dollars per year, and enjoys certain
privileges among which are: tickets to all
lectures given under the auspices of the
Board of Managers either at the Garden or
elsewhere, invitations to all exhibitions
given under the auspiees of the Board of
Managers, a eopy of all handbooks pub-
lished by the Garden, a copy of all annual
reports, copies of the monthly Journal, and
an opportunity to buy some of the other
publieations of the institution at reduced
priees.

One of the most important functions of «

the Garden consists in the advancement of
the technieal knowledge of botany and the
furtherance of research in all subdivisions
of the subject.

The collections in the plantations, horti-
eultural houses and museum offers an ex-
cellent melange of material upon which
investigations may be based, and the her-
barium, library and laboratories are the
direct means for the facilitation of such re-
search work. "The Garden, as an indepen-

946

dent institution, offers its facilities to ad-
vanced students or investigators from any
part of the world who may secure registra-
tion in the proper manner. Persons thus
registering at the Garden are entitled to the
privileges of a student at Columbia Univer-
sity without payment of further fees in ac-
cordance with the terms of a contract in
existence between the two institutions.
The essential features of this agreement
stripped of formal verbiage are as follows:

SCIENCE.

[N. S. Vor. XI. No. 285..

student may become a candidate at Co-
lumbia or other institutions of university
rank.

Twenty-two students have had the privi-
leges of the Garden during the collegiate
year now closing. Eight of these were
registered as students at the Garden and
fourteen from Columbia. 'Two of these
have undergone the examination for the
degree of doctor of philosophy, and three.
for master of arts in Columbia University.

Main Hortieultural houses: view from the north west.

the herbarium and botanical library of the
University are deposited at the Garden, the
graduate work of the University in botany
is carried on at the Garden under the guid-
ance of a member of the staff of the Garden
or of the University according to the election
of the student: students registered at the
Garden may elect work with members of
either staff, and are entitled to the privi-
leges of a student in other lines in Columbia
University.

It is to be noted that the Garden is not
enabled to confer degrees, but the advanced

New York Botanical Garden.

The great diversity of natural conditions
offered by the area comprised in the
Garden, includes the widest range of cul-
tural conditions, and in connection with the
horticultural houses gives ample facility for
work with living material. "These advan-
tages havealready been realized in the cul-
turaltests of critical or little known spe-
cies, and in physiological experimentation.

The range of investigations which may
be carried on in any institution is limited
by its collections of living and preserved
specimens and the accomplishment of re-

JUNE 15, 1900.]

searches upon this material depends di-
rectly upon the facilities offered by its her-
baria, library, and laboratories, and the
Spirit in which these opportunities are ad-
ministered.

The main herbarium, library, and labora-
tories of the New York Botanical Garden
are chiefly located on the third floor of the
Museum and their arrangement is illus-
trated by the diagram in figure 4.

The main herbarium occupies a room
eighty-five by forty-seven feet in the east
wing, which is illuminated by four large
skylights in addition to thé windows. The
plants are arranged in two parallel series
of cases occupying opposite sides of the
room, with large oak tables in the middle
and at the ends of the room.

The Columbia University herbarium oc-
eupies the western side of the room, and
«i6 is one of the oldest, and in itself one of
the largest in America, contains over 600,-
000 specimens. "This herbarium was be-
gun early in the century by Dr. John Torrey,
and contains the material upon which his
elassie botanieal writings, extending over
halfa century, were based. Upon his death,
1873, this collection came into the posses-
sion of Columbia College. On this as a
foundation the present Columbia herbarium
was built. Mr. John J. Crooke presented
two valuable collections to Columbia ; the
one, that of Professor C. F. Meisner, of
Basle, Switzerland, one of the world's lead-
ing botanists, the other that of the late Dr.
A. W. Chapman, of Apalachieola, Florida,
in which are contained the specimens upon
which Dr. Chapman founded his * Flora of
the Southern United States. A few years
later the mosses, and many of the hepaties
and lichens aceumulated by Mr. C. F. Aus-
tin, eame into the possession of Columbia,
while the latest acquisition of great size
and importance, secured through the kind-
ness of friends of the university, was the
famous collection of mosses brought to-

SCIENCE.

941

gether from all parts of the world by the
late Dr. J. G. Jaeger, of Switzerland. "To
this ample nucleus Dr. Torrey's successor,
Dr. N. L. Britton, while professor at Co-
lumbia, and his associates, added continu-
ally by securing collections from all parts
of the globe, and by special collecting trips
to various parts of North America.

The most completesets of specimens se-
eured on two noteworthy South American
journeys of exploration are here preserved ;
the one trip was that made by Dr. Rusby
through the Andes of Bolivia, the other
that of Mr. Morong in Paraguay and Chili."

The Garden has accumulated about
200,000 herbarium specimens since its or-
ganization. In this number is included
the famous Ellis collection of fungi, includ-
ing over a hundred thousand and forming
one of the largest and most complete col-
lections of fungi in the world, outranking
any similar collection in America. Various
private herbaria have been acquired by gift
and purchase, among which are those of
John J. Cooke, F. M. Hexamer, H. E.
Hasse, P. A. Rydberg, Lewis R. Gibbes,
Peter V. LeRoy, Harry Edwards, Anna M.
Vail and Francis E. Lloyd. Accessions
are being made at the rate of fifty to a
hundred thousand specimens per year.

The main herbarium room is supple-
mented by two store rooms, and the office
of the curator of the museums near it. In
addition adequate preparation and storage
rooms in the basement serve for the recep-
tion and handling of duplicate and un-
mounted material,as well as for the press
upon which final labels are printed. Di-
rectly west of the herbarium suite is the
taxonomie laboratory, which is especially
adapted for systematic and: anatomical in-
vestigations.

The laboratory of the Director-in-chief
occupies a large room between the taxo-
nomie laboratory and the library. The
embryological laboratory occupies a cor-

No. 285.

[N. S. Vor. XI.

SCIENCE.

942

and also receive indirect light from

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ward

responding position on the other side of the
reading room, and opens into the main mor-

the hallway through numerous glass panels.

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The instrumental equipment of the labora-

phologiecal laboratory. "These laboratories

tories comprises a number of microscope

are illuminated by windows facing north-

JUNE 15, 1900.]

stands suitable for investigators, from the
most prominent makers, and a full comple-
ment of objectives, immersion and apo-
chromatic. "The outfit in question has
been planned to meet the habits and preju-
dices of workers from any part of the
country, and it has been found possible to
duplicate the apparatus to which any stu-
dent has become accustomed.

'The construction for special furniture for
the laboratories awaits the definition of the
forms most suitable for the character of the
work which may be undertaken here.

A most interesting comparison with the
battery of modern high power optical ap-
paratus on hand, is afforded by a collection
of old mieroscopes given by Mr. Chas. F.
Cox of the Board of Managers, which forms
a special laboratory exhibit. "This collec-
tion illustrates the development of the mi-
eroscope during the last century and a half.

The physiological dark room opens from
the morphological laboratory, and is four-
teen feet square with double doors and in-
dependent ventilation, connecting directly
with the outside air. It is heated indi-
rectly by the walls of the contiguous rooms,
and its position in the middle of the wing
of the building together with its content of
over thirty-five hundred cubie feet of air
secure for ib à very equable temperature.
This room has been in constant use for six
months including the period of tests of the
heating system of the building and the
total range of temperature has not ex-
ceeded four degrees centigrade, and at no
time has a variation of two degrees been
noted in a single week. "The humidity
varies from sixty to eighty per cent. in the
work now in progress, and it has been found
to offer much more suitable conditions for
experimental work than any room used for
a similar purpose which has come under the
notice of the writer.

A. eorridor leads from the morphological
laboratory to the class-room between the

SCIENCE.

943

dark room and the office of the director of
the laboratories (Professor's room, Fig. 4).
The class-room is thirty-five by twenty
feet, and one end is furnished with such
accessories as to make it suitable for the
weekly convention of workers from the lab-
oratories. The other end serves for the
private laboratory of the director of the
laboratories and contains the departmental
library.

The physiological laboratory is a / sky-
lighted room, thirty-five by thirty-two feet,
occupying the corner of the building. It
has a stone floor set in water-tight cement,
a tank for aquaties, and tables for cultures.
An ample heating surface is provided, and
a special system of steam pipes around un-
der the skylights secures ventilation, and
acts as a preventive of dripping moisture.
Ventilation of the ordinary type and that
of the greenhouse are provided, while a set
of shades may be used to cut off the direct
rays of the sun. By such means a range
of temperature similar to that of an inter-
mediate greenhouse is secured. "To this
room are brought specimens from the plan-
tations and greenhouses for experimental
and observational purposes, and these are
removed as soon as the work with them is
finished.

A small chemical laboratory opens from
the physiological laboratory, and leads into
the large chemieal laboratory occupying
the eorner of the wing. "This room has
not yet been provided with the special fur-
niture and fittings necessary for chemical
work. It has a large ventilating hood
leading into a duct into which all the ven-
tilating flues of the room empty. A ven-
tilating fan driven by à powerful motor
is capable of renewing the entire body of
air in the room in a few minutes and thus
preventing the escape of noxious gases into
the contiguous laboratories.

'TThe second eorner of the wing is occu-
pied by the photographic laboratory and

944

balance room, which is equipped with an
outfit comprising a set of screens, cameras,
and a selection of anastigmatie and planar
lenses which provide for almost every con-
tingeney of indoor and outdoor work, in-
cluding photomierography and projection.
The adjoining dark room opens directly
into the hallway and contains the appa-
ratus necessary for developing the printing.

The basement floor of the museum con-
tains two rooms devoted to laboratory pur-
poses. One is planned for the storage of
chemicals and other supplies, for glassblow-
ing and general preparation work. The
second is a constant temperature room,
thirty-four by twenty feet, furnished with
double walls, doors and windows; this is
designed to be separated into several
smaller chambers in which different tem-
peratures may be maintained. A series of
thermographie tests of the temperature re-
sulting from outside and inside causes are
now in progress, from which the final fit-
tings necessary for absolute control of the
different temperatures may be determined.

The worker who comes to the herbarium
or laboratories is supposed to have already
demonstrated his ability to carry on inde-
pendent research work, and after he has
been provided with the necessities for the
proseeution of the work he has only so much
of advice and consultation with the mem-
ber of the staff under whom he has elected
work as to insure its successful prosecution.
No facilities are given for elementary in-
struetion. All the members of the staff
and the workers in the laboratories meet
once every week to listen to the presenta-
tion of results accomplished by one of their
number, or by some visiting botanist. 'The
opportunity for the diseussion of newly
found results has been found most stimu-
lating to the persons concerned, and inter-
esting to all attending.

The library consists of a large reading
room or rotunda under the dome, of a stack

SCIENCE.

[N. S. Vor. XI. No. 985.

or book room to the rear in the square cen-
tral wing and two small store rooms for
pamphlets and duplicates.

The stack room is admirably lighted by
three west, four north and three east win-
dows, and by a long central skylight. "The
reading room is lighted both from the win-
dows in the dome and from the stack room,
and is furnished with chairs and large oak
tables.

The book stacks are forty in number,
arranged along both sides of the book room.
They are constructed by steel plate of one-
tenth inch in thickness, are double-fronted,
made in sections four feet long, two feet
deep and six and a-half feet high, with solid
ends and tops, but no fronts or doors, the
lowest shelf being about three inches from
the floor. "They are painted a dark olive-
green in japanned finish. Each stack is
provided with five movable shelves with
adjustable space or holes on the inside of
the eases about one inch apart, through
which small bolts are thrust to catch the
shelves.. For the folios there are four large
metallie double-fronted | cases, three feet
high with a table top five by three and a
half feet, in the center of the stack room.
Each case has two sections on each front,
one with three plain shelves and the other
arranged with a system of roller shelves for
the easier handling of the heavier folios.

In accordance with the agreement with
Columbia University all the botanical books
of this institution, amounting to about
5000, are deposited here. "The Garden has
aequired about 2000 volumes since its or-
ganization. 'The general character of the
library may be known when it is stated
that an invoice, February 1, 1900, showed
127 volumes of general dictionaries and
non-botanical reference works, 100 vol-
umes on general science, 200 volumes on
geology and paleontology, 1733 volumes.
of periodieals and proceedings, 52 volumes
of collective and historical works, 495 vol-

JUNE 15, 1900.]

umes on morphology and physiology, 50
volumes on geographic distribution, 2105
volumes of floras and taxonomic mono-
graphs on the phanerogams, 900 volumes on
ervptogams, 640 volumes on agriculture,
325 volumes on gardening, 200 volumes on
forestry and 200 volumes on meteorology.
'Thetotal number of volumes on the shelves
was 7117. Since this count was made the
additions raise the total to about 8000.
Some care has been taken to exclude books
and proceedings which have only an inci-
dental interest to botany, with the idea that
such additions decrease the actual working
effieiency of the library ànd increase the
labor necessary forits administration. The
books are classified according to the Dewey
system of indexing, and pamphlets and sep-
arates are not indexed or included in the
count until bound up in volumes by subject.

The collective efficiency of the facilities
described above is such that the institution
bids fair to meet the expectations of all
its different classes of constituents. The
large number of specialists of the staff, to-
gether with those of other institutions who
offer to guide research here, gives the stu-
dent, who may come here to carry on in-
vestigations, the widest range of election of
work. Among those offering to guide re-
search in the Garden are: Professor L. M.
Underwood, Dr. C. C. Curtis, Dr. M. A.
Howe, Dr. N. L. Britton, Dr. D. T. Mac-
Dougal, Dr. P. A. Rydberg, Dr. G. V. Nash,
Dr. J. K. Small, Professor F. E. Lloyd,
Mrs. E. G. Britton, and Professor E. S.
Burgess.

- The personal interest and care shown by.

the members of the Board of Managers in
the organization of the Garden has resulted
in placing it on its present broad foundation,
while the energetic administration of the
business details by the Director-in-chief
has brought the institution through the
most critical part of its constructive period
without departure from the original plans,

SCIENCE.

945

without financial deficit, and with no undue
loss of time.

The original guarantee fund has been pre-
served intact and increased by gifts and be-
quests to nearly $300,000, the income of
which is available ; a second source of in-
come consists of the fees of the members, and
a third source is the support received from
the Department of Publie Parks of the City

of New York.
D. T. MacDocvacar.

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS.
The Unknown. By CAMILLE FLAMMARION.

Harper & Brothers. 1900. Pp. 488.

This volume consists of a plea for the exis-
tence of unknown or unrecognized psychiecal
forees or manifestations, and an attempt to
popularize this branch of investigation, by an
astronomer who is known for similar contribu-
tions to other fields—some of them of a pro-
nounced imaginative type. "When one applies
to the work the critical examination which
science demands, the estimate of its value must
be distinetly unfavorable. Its defects are many
and serious; its merits do not go beyond those
included in a laborious compilation of refrac-
tory material and a thorough and sincere in-
terest. Its contents include two introductory
chapters on the dangers of excessive incredulity
as well as of a too ready credulity; a large
collection of cases of communications made by
the dying and regarded as evidence of telepathy;
a similar collection of related cases of thought
transmission and elairvoyance under other con-
ditions; a consideration of dreams and of pre-
monitions and of hallucinations, mainly again
as indieative of abnormal psychic operations ;
and some scattered and weak attempts to in-
terpret these phenomena on a telepathic and
fpsyehie force! hypothesis. . The dominant
tone of the book is one not uncommon in
French writings of similar purpose, and one
particularly unattractive to the Anglo-Saxon
intellect; there is much protesting of the ne-
cessity of careful observation and of not accept-
ing anything except on a sufficient evidence,
and again of the limitations of human knowl-
edge and of the readiness with which even

946

learned men make mistakes and form preju-
dices, and of the ultimate possibility of almost
any theory and belief; there is much use of
analogies without any discernment of the es-
sential likeness or unlikeness upon which the
value of all analogies rests; there is an at-
tempt to write the matter up for and down to
the publie which when put into matter-of-fact
and not too skillful English produces an un-
fortunate impression of self-assurance and an
assumption on the part of the writer of an in-
tense interest in his opinions on the part of the
public. :

Viewed as a contribution to a domain of
knowledge most familiarly known as ' Psychical
Research, the work's fundamental faults are a
lack of critical judgment in the estimation of
evidence, and of an appreciation of the nature
ofthe logical conditions which the study of these
problems presents. In this respect it forms a
marked contrast with the best of the English
contributions to the same topics, notwithstand-
ing an essential agreement of results. Although
the motto of one of the chapters is ' Des faits !
Pas de phrases, the readiness of the author to
accept as real fact the elaborated and often
biased report of an unskilled witness, and to
pay himself with words in his own use of the
evidence, arelamentably conspicuous. A writer
who can say of the reports of 4280 miscellaneous
correspondents who reply to his request for
cases of unusual ' psychic experiences; ** What
struck me in all these narratives was the loyalty,
good faith, frankness, and delicacy of the writ-
ers, who were careful to tell only what they
knew and how they came to know it, without
adding to or subtracting anything from the sub-
ject. Every one of them was the servant of
truth," gives more evidence of his confidence
in human nature than of his fitness to undertake
sueh an investigation. A writer who can cite
the persistence of sensations referred to ampu-
tated limbs, and the familiar principle of *ec-
centrie projection that the sources of our sen-
sations are referred outward to an external
object, and the subjective character of color
sensations, as psychological data suggestive of
or corroborative of telepathy ; who can transfer
the physieal principle of sympathetic vibration
to imaginary brain vibrations and state that

SCIENCE

[N. S. Vor. IX. No. 285.

** A]I facets relating to the production and asso-
ciation of ideas can be explained by the oceur-
rence of vibrations of the brain and of the
nervous system which originates in the brain ;
this was demonstrated by David Hartley in the
last century," gives further evidence of his in-
capacity for the task which he has elected to
perform.

From beginning to the end of the volume
there is no evidence that the author has con-
sidered or is familiar with the explanations of
a non-telepathic nature which have been of-
fered for some of the facts with which he deals.
The fact that hypnotized subjects are quick to
seize and act upon the unconscious wishes or
suggestions of their hypnotizers is put down as
evidence of telepathy without mention of other
far more simple and more adequately demon-
strated explanations ; and the considerable evi-
dence for regarding many ' veridieal? presenti-
ments and premonitions as illusions of memory
is likewise ignored. Instead of a carefully

developed logical argument, strengthened at

every step by an examination of rival hypothe-
ses and of the sources of error inherent in the
evidence; instead of the critical analysis and
differentiation of cases and a discernment of
the prominent factors of community and diver-
gence of the observations; we have only reitera-
tion with inereasing emphasis of the truth of
the author's favorite hypothesis, and an endless
compilation of stories that may be interesting
and even significant but hardly justify the pur-
pose to which they are applied. *' Brains are
centres of radiation." ''But the actual FACT
of the action of the soul at a distance is now
demonstrated." ''* The action of one human be-
ing upon another, from a distance, is a scientific
fact; it is as certain as the existence of Paris, of
Napoleon, of Oxygen, or of Sirius." '*'There are
mental transmissions, communications of thoughts,
and psychic currents between human souls."
* PSYCHIC FORCE EXISTS. ITS NATURE
IS YET UNKNOWN." '*We may see without
eyes and. hear without ears, . . . by some interior
sense, psychic and mental. '''The soul by its
interior vision, may see not only what is passing at
a great distance, but it may also know in advance
what is to happen in the future. 'The future exists
potentially, determined by causes which bring

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