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OF

NATURE.

BY

JAS HENRY-BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE.

MISERIS SUCCURRERE DISCO.

TRANSLATED BY

HENRY HUNTER, D. D.

LÁTE MINISTER OF THE SCOTS CHURCH, LONDON - WALL,

FIFTH EDITION.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR J. MAWMAN; J. WALKER; LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND
ORME; VERNOR, HOOD, AND SHARPE; C. LAW; LACKINGTON,
ALLEN, AND CO.; B. CROSBY AND CO.; J. RICHARDSON;
AND J. M. RICHARDSON.

1809.

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H. Bryer, Printer, Bridge-street, Blackfriars, London.

EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES.

FLOWERS. PLATE III.

Volume II. Page 307.

S the explanation of this Plate is inserted in the

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text, all I shall say of it here is this, that the forms of flowers which have a direct relation to the Sun, may all be reduced to those five primary patterns of flow. ers, to reverberated, perpendicular, conic,spheric, elliptic, and plane or parabolic; and flowers which have negative relations to the Sun, to the five other patterns of flowers in parasol, which are here represented in contrast with the first. At the same time, though these last be of forms much more diversified than reverberated flowers, all their negative species may be referred to those five positive forms.

I am of opinion, that if there were added to those five positive, or primordial forms, a certain number of accents, to express the modifications of them, we should have the true characters of the florification, and an alphabet of that agreeable part of vegetation. I likewise presume that by means of this alphabet, it might be possible to characterize, on geographical Charts, the different sites of the vegetable kingdom. It would be sufficient to apply the signs of them to the forests which are there represented; for on seeing in the Chart, for the sake of supposition, that of the reverberated, perpendicular, expressed by an ear of corn, or a prominent cone, we should instantly A 3

distinguish

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