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44 



MR. JAMES BRITTEN ON SOME 



my abode in London, to show me all possible favonrjand, what was tlie chief 

 object of my wishes, granted me free and unconirolled access to liis incom- 

 parable Collections, made (that appertaining to the vegetable kingdom in 

 particular) from every part of tlie globe. I accordingly spent the forenoon 

 of every day at liis house^ and went with the utmost attention through his 

 extensive Herbarium^ which was a most commodious as well as efficacious 

 method of enlarging my stock o£ knowledge in this department of my 

 favourite Science. And as at the same time several learned men daily 

 assembled here, as though it were to an Academy of Natural History^ I had 

 frequent opportunities likewise of forming connexions tbat proved as useful 

 to me as they were truly creditable and hoiiourable. . , . Among other favours 

 with which Sir Joseph Banks overwhelmed me^ I consider this a singular 

 proof of his friendship that I w^as pcrmitied, previous to my departure, to 

 view the Collection of Plants made from the islands in the Pacific Ocean, 

 whicli were not as yet placed among the other plants, and are not shown in- 

 discriminately to every stranger. Dr. Solander^ who, as well as Mr. Dryander, 

 strove to render my abode in London both agreeable and a<lvantageous to me, 

 had the goodness, on this occasion, to order the whole of this Collection to b( 

 brouglit down from the upper story, and to go through with me every single 

 and distinct species.*' He speaks with enthusiasm of Banks's library as 

 *'the completest in the world^ with respect to Natural History, both in old 

 and new works/' and enlarges on the convenience " when one is examining 



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any particular plant, of referring to and consulting whatever author one 

 chuses, wMtliout loss of time/' (Travels, iv* 288-293 : the quotations are 

 from the third edition, 1790.) 



Thunberg also visited the British Museum, where he inspected Ka^mpfer's 

 plants and MSS. in the Sloane collection ; lie went to Tvew, then under the 

 direction of the elder Alton, and to the Chelsea Garden and those of Fothergill 

 at Upton ("West Ham) and James Lee at Hammersmith. After leaving 

 England he maintained intimate relations with Dryander by means of corre- 

 spondence ; his letters range in date from 1778 to 1793, with one written 

 in 1803. Besides these letters the Department of Botany possesses two 

 beautifully written MSS, of Thunberg— one, bis original description of 

 Connarus decumhens^ published in Roemer^s ' Archiv fur die Botanik ^ (i, 1, 

 1796), with the original drawing (by Olin) : the other (dated ''Cap. d. 

 12 Mart. 1771^') a description of a plant which he proposed to name 

 Solcanira (the Solandra of Linnaeus having been referred to Hydrocotyle) " a 

 Domino Solandro, Medic. Doctore et Botanico per Orbem inclyto." The 

 first (and probably the second) was acquired with lloemer's herbarium, which 

 formed part of the Shuttle worth collection. There is also a holograph letter 

 in French, apparently addressed to Brown, dated from Upsala, 14 March 1822, 

 beginning " Monsieur ! Cher et respectable Ami ! " "We have also a manu- 

 script volume in Dryander's hand entitled " Caroli Petri Thunberg , . • Flora 



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