Page:Miscellaneousbot01brow.djvu/277

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OBSERVATIONS, &c.

��The Herbarium formed, cliicfly by the late [Ai-pcud. p. jios Dr. Oiidiicy, during the expedition, eontains specimens, more or less perfect, of about three hundred species. Of these one hundred belong to the vicinity of Tripoli ; fifty were collected in the route from Tripoli to Mourzuk, thirty-two in Pezzan, thirty-three on the journey from ]\rourzuk to Kouka, seventy-seven in Bornou, and sixteen in Haussa or Soudan.

These materials are too inconsiderable to enable us to judge correctly of the vegetable productions of any of the countries visited by the mission, and especially of the more interesting regions, Bornou and Soudan.

Tor the limited extent of the herbarium, the imperfect state of many of the specimens, and the very scanty in- formation to be found respecting them, either in the her- barium itself or in the journal of the collector, it is unfor- tunately not difficult to account.

Dr. Oudney was sufficiently versed in botany to have formed collections much more extensive and instructive, had the advancement of natural history been the principal purpose of his mission. His time and attention, however, were chiefly occupied by the more important objects of the expedition ; as a botanist he had no assistant ; and the state of his health during his residence in Bornou must, in a great degree, have rendered him unable to collect or observe the natural productions of that country.

For the few specimens belonging to Soudan, we are in- debted to Captain Clapperton, who, after the death of Dr.

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