70 



the coach. He is now as active as a person of forty, and is in great 

 practice as a surgeon in London. A neater herbarium than that of 

 Sir A. Menzies I never saw : the Cyperacese and Graminese, as well 

 as the Mosses and Ferns, (the latter are his favourites,) are laid out 

 with the utmost care in octavo papers, and packed in cases, so as 

 to be ready to be taken on board ship again at a moment's notice. 



Sir Archibald Menzies informed us, with evident pleasure, that two 

 of his countrymen (of Scotland) are about to enjoy the same privi- 

 lege of travelling as his own youth had received ; — a Mr. MacGray 

 having been sent as a botanist, in that vessel which carried home the 

 remains of the king of the Sandwich Islands, to the South Seas ; 

 and another, Mr. Douglas, being gone, in a similar capacity, to the 

 Columbia River. A Mr. Frost, also, has visited America. From 

 Menzies, too, we learned that Brodie, lieutenant of the County of 

 Nairn and member of Parliament, has lately died. 



At Mr. Lambert's Museum we had the great good fortune to be- 

 come acquainted with Dr. Richardson, the celebrated companion of 

 Capt. Franklin in his expedition to Arctic America. This gentleman, 

 who lives at Chatham, was so obliging as to show us his herbarium, 

 which contains many rarities, and a great number of new species, 

 particularly belonging to the genera Ranunculus, Rubus, and Poten- 

 tilla. Before starting on the voyage which he will undertake next 

 year in the direction of the North Pole, — for not all the ice of those 

 frozen regions has power to cool his ardour in the cause of science, 

 —Dr. Pcichardson will prepare a new edition of his Appendix. 



Mr. Andrews the botanist was not at home ; he is proceeding 

 with his works on the EriccE, and Gerania. 



At the British Museum we had expected to find a treasure of 

 Natural History; but, — except Sloane's collection of dried plants in 

 thirty volumes, and an herbarium which belonged to a Mr. Van 

 Moll, with a small but well preserved set of British birds, — we found 

 nothing that interested us at all. The department of Minerals is 



if our venerable friend had been greeted with such a shower of his beautiful name- 

 sake, the day would have been one of the happiest of his life ; and the freshly 

 pulled specimens would have been at least as acceptable as the blessings which 

 accompanied them.— Ed, 



