Another book, that because of its manifold literary merit, of historical accuracy and statistical detail, is styled by Retana "an historical work par excellence," is the general history of the Philippines (Sampaloc, 1788-1792), by the Recoleto missionary, Juan de la Concepción, copious source of varied and valuable information, wherein--albeit somewhat prolix in style, at times, too, rather digressive--the author may fairly be said to be without rival. Then comes the descriptive and historical account of the Marianas Islands (Madrid, 1875), by Felipe La Corte y Ruano Calderón, the best work on that little-known archipelago, and a rich source of general information anent these Malaysian islands. On the botany of the Philippines, a monumental work of the highest character is the Philippine Flora (classified according to the sexual system of Linnæus), by the Augustinian, Manuel Blanco, printed at Manila, first in 1837, again in 1845, and finally republished a third time in 1877-1883, in superb style, in four folio volumes of text in Spanish and Latin, embellished with two volumes of colored lithographed plates descriptive of the plants, flowers and fruits of those islands. One of the co-laborers on the third edition of this Flora was Ignacio Mercado, a Philippine botanist himself, and professed member of the Augustinian brotherhood. The same Father Blanco also translated into Tagal the French physician Tissot's work on medicine, enriched with his own life-long observations on Philippine plant-lore. Along with Blanco's Flora should be named the catalogue of fauna of the Philippines (Manila, 1895-1896), by the Dominican zoologist, Casto de Elera, an expert in that line of biological science,--a work in folio (in three volumes) of two thousand three hundred pages and upwards, termed by Retana not only a monumental work--easily to be believed--but one unique of its character. The geology of the islands (Madrid, 1840?), treated by Isidro Sainz de Baranda, government inspector of mines, besides being well worth reading, is the earliest study on this topic made on strictly scientific lines. Two works, sole representatives of their kind, are named by Retana as of singular value to the physician not only, but to ethnologist and scholar especially,--one the Embriologia Sagrada (Manila, 1856), by the Recoleto missionary Gregorio Sanz, written in aid of his fellow caretakers of souls, whose services in behalf of suffering humanity in out-of-the-way districts were often called upon by the natives, whose practice of the curing art, based on their own traditional formulas, especially in cases of child-bearing, was, despite the efforts of the missionary to uproot their unnatural and utterly heathen disregard for human life, attended too often with destruction of progeny and mother.