Educ T 358, 19.5

530

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT:

District Clerk's Office.

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the twenty ninth day of July, A. D. 1819, and in the forty fourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, John Locke of the said District has deposited in this office the title of a Book, the right whereof be claims as author, in the words following, viz.

Outlines of Botany, taken chiefly from Smith's Introduction; containing an Explanation of Botanical Terms, and an Illustration of the System of Linnæus. Also some Account of Natural Orders, and the Anatomy and Physiology of Vegetables. Illustrated by Engravings. For the use of Schools and Students. By Dr. John Locke, Lecturer on Botany.

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, "An Act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned;" and also to an Act, entitled, "An act supplementary to an Act, entitled, an Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned; and extending the benefits thereof to the Arts of Designing, Engraving and Etching Historical and other Prints."

то

JACOB BIGELOW, M. D.

Rumford Professor and Lecturer on Materia Medica and Botany in Harvard

SIR,

University.

As this little treatise is chiefly taken from a work which has been made particularly valuable to our local situation by your additions, and as the public, especially in this vicinity, are much indebted to your lectures and publications, for a knowledge of the science of Botany, and an acquaintance with our native productions, there is a peculiar propriety in my offering it to your notice.

As you are acquainted with the value of the science, as a branch of early education, I am confident that every effort to put into the hands of the young a facility in its acquisition, will meet your approbation.

Permit me then to place the following pages under your protection, and offer you this inscription as a testimony of personal gratitude and esteem for the honour and benefits of your friendship, which were kindly bestowed on me while your pupil, and have ever since been continued.

Your much obliged friend and

humble servant,

JOHN LOCKE.

Boston, July 24, 1819.

PREFACE.

BOTANICAL works are of two kinds, elementary and practical. The design of an elementary treatise on botany, is to enable the student by the help of a practical work, to find out the name and history of an unknown plant in the most expeditious and certain manner. This it does by making him acquainted, in the first place, with the marks or characters by which plants are distinguished from each other, such as the forms of the leaves, the number of parts in the flower, &c. and with the terms applied to those characters; and in the second place, with a system, by which these characters are used to the best advantage, and a multitude of descriptions so methodized, that the description of an individual can be determined with expedition and certainty.

Practical works contain no explanations of terms or system, but presuming the student to be already acquainted with these, proceed immediately to make use of them in the descriptions of plants.

Elementary works are to practical ones what a spelling-book, dictionary, and grammar are to works of history, poetry, &c. Notwithstanding this distinċ

a*

tion of botanical books is so obvious as seems scarcely to need noticing here, yet I have seen those who were by no means deficient in literature, go to an elementary treatise such as Smith's, and search it in vain for the description of some unknown plant they had met with.

The object of the present treatise has not been to bring forward any thing new in elementary botany, or to alter what has been before established; but merely to collect and arrange the most important" outlines” of the subject in a concise form, and illustrate them by examples of native plants, affording a volume of a moderate price for the use of schools and students.

For several years I have occasionally given instructions in various places, to classes of young people ; in several instances to boarding schools of young ladies and misses, who have generally acquired the elements with great facility. In giving these instructions I uniformly felt the want of such a work as this is intended to be. Other instructers informed me that they experienced the same. These were the circumstances which induced me to prepare the following pages.

Lately I have delivered lectures on botany in Dartmouth College and to a private class in the Medical Institution of Yale College. The students in both instances were anxious to obtain a concise work containing the most essential elements, as they had scarcely