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commented upon the sacred record, from that period to the present day. When they stumbled upon the name of a plant which they could not very well avoid noticing, they dexterously extricated themselves out of the difficulty by the sententious remark, either that "it was a species of herb or tree," or that "it was not easy to know what it was."

The other difficulty alluded to in the scientific investigation of Scripture botany, is connected with the peculiar political position of the Holy Land. There is no part of the world, of the same extent and physical character, so difficult to explore. It is visited by thousands annually from every quarter, and so many books have been written upon it, that the subject is quite hackneyed. People of rank and wealth in search of a new sensation, after exhausting Europe; literary men, who intend to coin their travels into money; professional divines in search of fresh materials for an exegetical treatise; the accomplished man of science,--crowd upon each other's footsteps in rapid succession, year after year: but the wanderings of these pilgrims are confined almost exclusively to the old and well-beaten tracks, and we are afflicted in consequence with a woeful monotony of tone and sameness of aspect in their revelations. The unsettled state of the country makes it dangerous to travel in certain districts in search of plants, or the information regarding them which may be gathered on the spot from the common people, by one conversant with Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic, without the incumbrance of a large and well-armed escort, is beyond the means of most private scientific men. Under the effete and tyrannical government of the Turks everything withers, from commercial enterprise to family comfort; neither life nor property can be said to be safe for a single moment, even in the most peaceful localities. Travellers. are frequently waylaid, robbed, and murdered with impunity. Hordes of robbers, Bedouins from the desert and discontented tribes from the mountains, carry on a guerilla warfare with each other, like that which exists at present among the brigands of revolutionary Italy. In consequence of this sad state of things, existing now for many centuries, nothing like a general, exhaustive, systematic description of the plants indigenous to or growing within the area of the country, has ever been attempted by any nation. While the wildest parts of the Andes and Himalayas, the almost inaccessible valleys of the Altai range, and the remotest islands of the Pacific, have each their vegetation fully investigated and carefully systematised by the labours of recent botanists, Palestine is almost the only country whose flora has never

been explored or published. There have been, indeed, occasional brief notices of the vegetation of isolated districts, in the works of scientific writers; and in the histories of those scientific expeditions sent out from time to time, chiefly for topographical purposes, by the English, French, and American Governments. The journals of Niebuhr and Burckhardt occasionally allude to the plants that came within the range of their own observation; but botany was only one, and that a very subsidiary, object of their travels. Tournefort, one of the most accomplished botanists of his time, from whom the idea of the geographical distribution of plants in latitude and altitude was first derived, describes a large number of the plants of Asia Minor. Hasselquist, a Swedish naturalist, and one of the most eminent of the disciples of Linnæus, prosecuted in Palestine special researches in botany, under the patronage of and at the expense of the University of Upsal, in 1751. He remained some time in Jerusalem, and afterwards visited other parts of the country, dying at Smyrna in the following year, a martyr in the cause of science, after having amassed a large and valuable collection of natural curiosities. This interesting collection was purchased by the Swedish Queen, Louisa Ulrica, and was deposited in the castle of Drottningholm, where, we believe, it may be seen at the present day. Linnæus, from the papers and specimens collected by his pupil, prepared for the press the "Iter Palæstinum," or, Travels in Palestine, with remarks on its Natural History, a work published at Stockholm in 1757, and translated into English and other European languages, though now very scarce. Hasselquist did more to explore personally the botany of the Holy Land than any other ancient or modern author, but his observations, owing to his premature decease, the limited resources at his command, and consequently the small space of ground over which he could travel, and the superficial and hurried manner in which he was obliged to conduct his researches, were necessarily brief and scanty, and do not throw very much light upon Biblical botany. We sincerely add our amen to the hope expressed by Professor Balfour, that travellers in future may have greater facilities afforded them for prosecuting with safety their researches in that interesting, although now deserted land, and that some botanist may soon arise who will be able to write with scientific accuracy on all the Scripture plants, "from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that groweth out of the wall." As if to encourage this hope, we learn that a scientific expedidition, headed by the Rev. H. B. Tristram, has recently passed through Malta for Syria, for the express purpose of

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investigating the geology, zoology, and botany of the Holy Land. The Malta Times states that the expedition is abundantly furnished with every requisite for the objects it has in view, in the way of scientific instruments, traps for catching the smaller mammals and reptiles, nets for fishing in the Jordan, &c.; and includes in its staff a skilled taxidermist, from the Zoological Society. A photographer also accompanies the expedition, the results of whose exertions will doubtless afford a valuable adjunct to the labours of the party, which, if the state of the country permit, are intended to extend over a period of six or eight months.

Deprived in a great measure of information from the two direct sources we have thus indicated, we are indebted for the scanty, imperfect knowledge we happen to possess of Scripture botany, to the works of the Greek botanists, Theophrastus and Dioscorides. There is an admirable commentary upon the Materia Medica of the latter author, published by Mathiolus, the celebrated botanist, in Venice in 1565, which furnishes valuable information regarding the plants whose range extended round the shores of the Egean Sea and the Levant. We owe much also to the Arabians, who paid great attention to almost every department of learning at a period when ignorance and barbarism overspread every part of the western world. Botany, as subsidiary to medicine, was cultivated by them with distinguished success, and advanced greatly beyond the condition in which it had been left by Dioscorides. The plants of all the surrounding countries were investigated and classified with considerable scientific exactness, chiefly by Rhazes, Ali Abbas and Avicenna. Through the labours of Albiruni, and Ibn Al Beithar, a native of Malaga, and the most distinguished of all the Arabian botanists, both of whom travelled over every part of southern Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia for many years, observing the nature and properties of the vegetable kingdom, upwards of two thousand plants, many of them the productions of Palestine, Egypt, and Arabia, were added to the lists previously known. To the works of these Arabian botanists, the Jewish Rabbis had recourse for a solution of the difficulties they encountered in the identification of Scripture plants; and Celsius himself candidly acknowledges his great obligations to a bulky Arabian MS., by Abn'l Fadli, which fell into his hands accidentally at Upsal, containing copious extracts from all the best Arabian writers on every subject calculated to illustrate Oriental natural history. Nor is it merely to the botanical literature of the Arabs that we are indebted; their spoken language, as a cognate dialect of the Hebrew, has also been of great service in the cause. By comparison of Scripture

names of plants with Arabic words in use among the people at the present day, Dr Royle was enabled to identify many species to which no other clue could be found, and to confirm the opinions he had been previously led to form regarding other species, from the circumstances and terms in which they were alluded to in the sacred text. The great lexicon of Firouzabad, the Johnson of Arabia, called the "Ocean" (Al Kamus), contains many names of plants so similar to the Hebrew ones, and so evidently derived from the same roots, that there can be no doubt that they refer to the same objects. The face of nature in its rugged and wild monotony was studied in the desert with a minuteness of which we can form no conception, for not only was there a separate name for every object, but even for every varying phase and appearance of it; and this vast accumulation of epithets, for which the Arabian language is remarkable, remains to this day as stereotyped and unchanged as the aspect of the country, and the manners and customs of the people.

Of modern works on Scripture botany, the oldest, and in many respects the best, is the "Hierobotanicon" of Celsius. It was written con amore, and bears evidence of having occupied for many years all the spare time of its author. One is almost dismayed by the proofs of immense erudition which it displays on every page. We used to consider the article of Sir William Hamilton on the Philosophy of Common Sense, a marvel of learning and research; but it is paralleled, if not excelled, in its own way by the work of the indefatigable Swede. Whole libraries of Oriental and classical lore are ground down and digested in it; and every page bristles with quotations in Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. All the stores of antiquity, the writings of classic authors, both Greek and Roman, the works of Dioscorides and Theophrastus, the commentaries of Jewish rabbis, the treatises of Arabian doctors, the floras of European botanists, have all been carefully examined, and everything bearing on the subject culled from them and incorporated. Each plant mentioned in the Bible-and there are upwards of one hundred and thirty described by Celsius-has not only its botanical peculiarities carefully analysed, but its philological history is also traced with exemplary patience through a maze of perplexities, and a labyrinth of languages and authorities, which would have daunted any one but a German or a Swede. The work has proved a valuable mine, from which almost all subsequent writers upon the subject have dug their materials. Kitto was greatly indebted to it; and many parts of his descriptions of plants in his Cyclo

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pedia are mere translations of his text. Of Prof. Balfour's "Plants of the Bible," we have a very favourable opinion. It is a beautiful volume, more adapted, however, for the drawing-room than the student's shelf, got up in the most elegant manner, and illustrated by very fine chromo-lithographs of nearly all the plants described. Like all the scientific works of this accomplished author, it is written in a clear, terse style, and conveys a great deal of information in small compass. We regard it as an exceedingly satisfactory circumstance in this age of loose dogmatism and flippant scepticism, that this subject should have been taken up and illustrated by a mind imbued at once with the clearest light of science and with the spirit of the Bible. One has a feeling of confidence in traversing the wilderness of Bible botany under the leadership of one whose acquaintance with botanical literature past and present, and also with plants preserved in herbariums, and growing in gardens and conservatories, is such as to qualify him in an eminent degree to pronounce a decided opinion on disputed points. In the volume already published we have merely an instalment of the subject; it treats only of the trees and shrubs of Scripture. A second volume, descriptive of the herbaceous plants, will be published shortly. It is the intention of the author, we believe, to remodel the whole work, and bring it out in a more popular form, and at a cheaper price. Should this intention be fulfilled, it will supply a desideratum long felt, and prove a boon to students of the Bible, as well as to the general reader. A small publication has been issued by the Religious Tract Society, which is a marvel of cheapness considering its size and the excellence of its materials. It may be obtained in paper covers for sixpence; and any one studying it carefully would not by any means be indifferently versed in Biblical botany. It is written in a pleasing, popular style, while at the same time it is scientifically accurate so far as it goes. Were we disposed to find fault with it, we should say that it is a little too rhetorical at times, and indulges rather freely in moralising. But possibly to the class of minds for whom it was written this may be rather a recommendation than otherwise. We should perhaps desiderate a little more of life and picturesqueness in all the books on this subject that have passed through our hands. They are all more or less dry and didactic, and destitute of literary grace; one peruses them more for information than pleasure. A more suggestive subject, or one more capable of being made interesting by the aid of adver titious circumstances, and picturesque colouring from associations of sacred scenery and incident, could not be easily

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