Xlvi PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



mistry and botany, and to the acquisition of different languages, 

 which occupied a large share of his attention during the remainder 

 of his life. Soon after the expiration of his apprenticeship he 

 wrote to Dr. Maton, to whom he was then personally unknown, 

 stating his anxious desire to become a Fellow of the Linnean 

 Society, and so strongly was Dr. Maton impressed in his favour 

 by the terms of his letter, that he readily undertook to propose 

 him. In the following year he was elected, and passing some 

 time in London, was introduced by Dr. Maton to Sir Joseph 

 Banks, Sir James E. Smith, and other eminent men of science, and 

 derived great advantage from the permission readily granted him 

 by Sir J. Banks to make use of his library and herbarium. In the 

 year 1812, Mr. Rootsey established himself at Bristol as a chemist 

 and druggist, and soon after commenced his Lectures on Chemistry 

 and Botany, the latter of which he continued until within a short 

 period of his death. In 1815 he published " A General Dispen- 

 satory, or Arrangement of the Pharmacopoeias of London, Edin- 

 burgh and Dublin," which he dedicated to Dr. Maton ; and in 

 1818, a " Syllabus of a Course of Botanical Lectures," delivered 

 to his pupils at Bristol. He also published a new system of No- 

 tation in Music, and various other works. A tour in Sweden in 

 1824 made him acquainted with Westring, from whom he obtained 

 the copper-plates of his Essays on Lichens and the Dyes afforded 

 by them, of which he proposed publishing an English translation ; 

 but unfortunately this intention was never carried out. He also 

 made the acquaintance of Broling and Afzelius ; and his MS. 

 Journal of his tour is stated to contain some highly interesting 

 facts and observations relating to natural history. In it he 

 mentions, among other subjects on which he was engaged, a new 

 projection of the World, his theory of vocal intervals in Music, 

 his mode of studying the Chinese Characters, his system of Phar- 

 macy, his Mineralogical Sliding-Eule, &c. &c. In 1826 he 

 published a revised and corrected edition of Donne's ' Mechanical 

 Geometry ; ' and besides the separate publications already men- 

 tioned, he communicated to the Philosophical and Literary Insti- 

 tution of Bristol, of which he was an Honorary Member, nume- 

 rous Papers on a variety of subjects, and to the Medico-Botanical 

 Society a Paper " On the Medical Botany of Shakespeare," which 

 was published in their ' Transactions ' for 1832. From the year 

 1834 he was chiefly occupied in lecturing on various subjects, but 

 more particularly on Botany, in Bristol, Bath, Swansea, Neath, and 

 other towns in the Western district ; but of late years his health 



