Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 81.djvu/266

260 However, at last De Laet, who was a man of much learning and ability, completed his task in spite of two additional heavy handicaps. The first was that he was not skilled in natural science, the second that Marcgrave's notes were arranged in no order whatever, those on each animal occupying a separate sheet. The greatest trouble, however, was had with the notes on plants, since Marcgrave had not been able to describe at one time and on one sheet the plant in leaf, in flower and in fruit. These notes, it must be understood, Marcgrave had written in the field and in Mauritia, and it is plain that he intended to edit them to make a homogeneous whole after his return to Holland.

How well De Laet did this work those know who are acquainted with the "Historia Naturalis Brasiliæ" published at Leyden and Amsterdam in 1648 with the following dedication to Count Maurice:

The first section of the volume is composed of Piso's "De Medicina Brasiliensi" comprising four books: I. on Air, Water and Places; II. on Endemic Diseases; III. on Poisons and Their Antidotes; IV. on the Use of Simples (herbs as remedies). This, which is dedicated to William of Auriacum, covers in all 132 folio pages and is illustrated with 104 figures limited to books III. and IY. Of these, three illustrate mandioea and sugar-making, nine are of animals (five snakes, one scolopendra, one sea cucumber, one toad-fish, one frog) and 92 are of plants.

The second section, Marcgrave's "Historiæ Rerum Naturalium Brasiliæ," is dedicated to the Count in the following eloquent terms.

This work comprised 303 folio pages, consisting of eight books and an appendix, and is illustrated by 429 figures. It is divided as follows: Book I., in which are described 149 herbs with 86 figures; Book II. contains descriptions of 48 shrubs and fruit-bearing plants with 39