390 Memorial of George Brown Goode. 



making paintings of birds and plants ; in the Carolinas, 1722 to 1725, and 

 a year also in the Bahamas. His magnificent illustrated work upon the 

 Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands,' is still of 

 great value to students of natural history. 



The name of John Bartram, the Quaker naturalist of Philadelphia, is 

 possibly better remembered than those of his contemporaries. This is no 

 doubt due to the fact that he left behind him a lasting monument in his 

 botanic garden on the banks of the Schuylkill. He was the earliest native 

 American to prosecute studies in systematic botany, unless Jefferson's 

 statement concerning Clayton proves to be true. Linngeus is said to 

 have called him ' ' the greatest natural botanist in the world, ' ' and George 

 III honored him in 1765 with the title of Botanist to his Majesty for 

 the Floridas and a pension of /"50 a year. Bartram was a most pic- 

 turesque and interesting personage, and a true lover of nature. He did 

 great service to botany by supplying plants and seeds to Linnaeus, Dil- 

 lenius, Collinson, and other European botanists. He was a collector, 

 however, rather than an investigator, and his successes seem to have been 

 due, in the main, to the patient promptings and advice of his friend Col- 

 linson in lyondon. Garden, whom he visited at Charleston in 1765, after 

 his appointment as King's Botanist, wrote of him to Ellis: 



I have been several times into the country, and places adjacent to town, with him, 

 and have told him the classes, genera, and species of all the plants that occurred, 

 which I knew. I did this in order to facilitate his enquiries, as I find he knows 

 nothing of the generic characters of plants, and can neither class them nor describe 

 them ; but I see that, from great natural strength of mind and long practice, he has 

 much acquaintance with the specific characters; though this knowledge is rude, 

 inaccurate, indistinct, and confused, seldom determining well between species and 

 varieties. He is, however, alert, active, industrious, and indefatigable in his pursuits.^ 



Fothergill says in his Memoir of Collinson ' ' that the eminent natur- 

 alist, John Bartram, may almost be said to have been created by my 

 friend's assistance." 



The foregoing remarks concerning the elder Bartram are simply for 

 the pitrpose of calling attention to his proper position among the Ameri- 

 can naturalists of his day. It is not that I esteem Bartram the less, but 

 that I esteem Garden, Clayton, Mitchell, and Colden more. The name 

 of Bartram brings up at once that of his friend and patron, Peter Collin- 

 son, just as that of Garden reminds us of John Ellis. 



Collinson and Ellis were never in America, yet if any men deserve to 

 be called the fathers of American natural history it is they. For a period 

 of thirty years or more, that period during which lyinnseus was bringing 

 about those reforms which have associated his name forever with the 

 history of the classificatory sciences, these enlightened and science-loving 

 Eondon merchants seem to have held the welfare of American science in 

 their keeping and to have faithfully performed their trust. I know few 



'London, 1754-1771, ^ Smith, Correspondence of Linnaeus, I, p. 537. 



