Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/75

 BOTANICAL NEWS. 63

thoroughly examined the oklcr Chinese works on agriculture and botany. These agree in stating that the grain was brought from Sifan (or Lower Mongolia), a district west of China, at a period probably long anterior to the end of the fifteenth century, though the date of its importation is no- where even hinted at. The paper is illustrated with reproductions of the characteristic figures of Maize in the ' Pun Ts'ao Kang-mu,' or ' General Treatise on Natural History,' published in 1597. Though these re- searches cannot be said to settle the native country of Zea Mays, they seem to establish the conclusion that the Old World is not originally in- debted for it to America.

Professor M. A. Lawson has detected, in the Sherardian herbarium pre- served at Oxford, a parcel of plants collected during the voyage round the world made by Dampier in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Only 18 species are mentioned in Ray's ' Historia Plantarura,' vol. iii. p. 225, but the parcel contains 40 ; some, however, are indeterminable. It will be of interest to know what were the other species found, to be included in the account which we hear it is the Professor's intention to offer to the Linnean Society.

Communications have been received from : — .T. Sadler, T. R. A. Briggs, J. Britten, R. Tucker, Prof. Dickie, Dr. W. Flight, Prof. Thiselton Dyer, J. Bagnall, W. P. Hiern, C. E. Broome, W. W. Saunders, etc.

Several papers and reviews stand over for want of space.

[Mr. H. C. Watson has printed and circulated amongst botanists a protesti, in the form of a letter to one of the editors of this Journal, against the notice of the third part of the ' Compendium of the Cybele Britannica,' which appeared in these pages last December (Journ. of Bot. Vol. VIII. pp. 394-397). As this printed letter denies the truth of certain state- ments contained in that notice, it was thought desirable that it should be placed before all the readers of the Journal. Mr. Watson was tlierefore requested to allow it to be stitched into the cover of the present number, the Journal ofiering to be at the expense of printing the necessary copies, but to this request he returned a decided refusal. It would occupy too much space to reprint the letter ; probably, however, those who care to see it, will be able to obtain a copy by application to the author. The reviewer's answer to Mr. Watson is printed below.

16M Januunj, 1871.

Dear Mr. Watson,

I have carefully read through the printed letter which you have sent rae, and which, though addressed to Mr. Baker, is directed against me, the author of the review to which you object ; and I feel it necessary to answer it. It exhibits four charges against me : 1st, that I have misre- presented you ; 2nd, that I have unjustly charged you with omission or neglect ; 3rd, that I have insinuated piracy or plagiarism on your part ; 4th, that I have exhibited an unwarranted "dogmatism, arising "from io-no- rance and a desire to display a fancied superiority.

I Avill dispose of these charges in order.

1st. The " misrepresentation." The statement objected to, I repeated from a review of the first part of the ' Compendium' (also written by me) in the 'Journal of Botany' for December 1868 (Vol. VI. p. 375)! As you took no exception to that notice, and have continued your contribu- tions to the Journal and friendship towards me, I had no' reason to sup-

�� �