14 HANKS CKLEllKAXIOX. 



Among the innny schemes with which Banks was connected 

 was the Association for J'roinot ing the Uiscoveiy of the Inland 

 Districts of Africa. Useful j)ioneer work w as done by this Society 

 thouj^h at the cost of life and treasure. The most successful 

 exj)edition was that to the (iainbia under Muiigo Park, a young 

 medical man and protege of Sir Joseph's, 171)4-97 : a second 

 expedition under Park in 18<>5 to the Niger met with disaster. 



Banks also secured the a|)|)ointment of his friend Afzelius, a 

 vouMg Swede, as botanist to the Sierra Leone Company : and 

 large collections were made during the four years of his stav, 

 17y2-i)(). 



In 1798 Mungo Park had been asked by the Government to 

 join a surveying e.xpedition to New Holland, but the nuitter fell 

 through. The event w as how ever the occasion of the introduction 

 to Hanks of Bnbert Brow n in the follow ing letter from Josef Correa 

 de Serra, a Portuguese exile resident in London and an intimate 

 friend of Banks. 



"Soho Square, 17th October. 1798. 

 " Eight llonble Sir, 



I hope you will not take amiss, my interference in the 

 subject of this note. Mr. Brown, a very good naturalist, who 

 frequents your Library, where I have made acquaintance with 

 him, hearing that Mungo Park does not intend to go any more to 

 Xew Holland, offers to go in his ])lace. Science is a gainer in 

 this change of man; Mr. Brown being a professed naturalist. 

 He is a Scotchman tit to i)ursue an object with Constance and 

 cold mind. His present situation is of Ensign and Assistant 

 Surgeon in the Fife-shire Fencibles, ])revious to which employ- 

 ment he received a regular Liiterary education at Edinburg. It 

 is by his own desire that I take the Liberty of making you 

 acquainted A\ith his wishes; his modesty deterring him from 

 w riting to you himself. 



I am sir most respecrfnlly yours 



J. COKREA i)E SkUUA." 



Two years later Brown was ofJered and accepted the post of 

 Xatinaiist on board the 'Investigator,' which was being fitted 

 out for a voyage of scientific exploration to New Holland under 

 Capt. Flinders. 



Ferdinand Bauer went as the botanic draughtsman, lirown 

 returned in October 1805, and in January 180*5 Sir J. Banks 

 reports to the Board of Admiralty the extent of the collections, 

 which were estin)ated as representing 3600 species of plants, 

 besides other natural history collections, and 11064 sketches by 

 Bauer. Banks also ananged that tlie salaries of Brown and 

 Bauer should he continued in order to enable them to complete 

 their work. " I will undertake,'' he writes, "to direct the progress 

 ■of these gentlemen, to quicken them if they are dilatory, to assist 



