HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. lix. 



Tradesmen's Benevolent Institution, I beg to present to you my Herbarium 

 Britannicum. to be deposited in the Halifax Museum for the benefit of the 

 Scientific, where I trust it will be well cared for. 



Accompanying the Herbarium is an interleaved copy of Baines' 

 " Flora of Yorkshire," also a volume of the " Phytologist," in which at 

 page 5S5 is a description of the Herbarium, and which description should 

 be read by anyone wishing to examine it. When examining any of the 

 Vols, care should be taken to turn over by the blue leaves as the white 

 ones are loose. 



The six Fascicles placed on the shelf are a fragment of a collection 

 intended to be arranged according to the natural arrangement ; not having 

 been able to carry out that work the specimens are put in fascicles according 

 to the Linnaean system, and numbered to correspond with the Vols, of the 

 Herbarium. To reduce the bulk of Vol. 6 the genus ' Salix ' has been 

 removed to fascicle no. 6. 



The accompanying Catalogues show the contents of the Vols. Those 

 species not dotted being desiderata have spaces and labels left for them in 

 the Vols. Duplicates are occasionally placed behind the sheet on which 

 the species is mounted. 



Corrosive sublimate of mercury was used in preparing the specimens. 



I am, Gentlemen, 



Yours faithfully, 



SAMUEL KING. 



According to the report of the Literary and Philosophical 

 Society for 1877, the Herbarium contained 1,450 British 

 Plants in the six volumes, and 360 duplicates in the fascicles. 

 The arrangement of it remains undisturbed, and the specimens 

 are in an excellent state of preservation. There are about 500 

 entries of local plants, collected between 1829 and 1856, though 

 very few were added after 1844. 



King contributed to Miall's Flora of the West Riding ; and 

 a rose sent by him from Luddenden to Mr. J. G. Baker in 

 1862 was named R. cvyptopoda, and does not appear to have 

 been reported again. But King's chief contribution to the 

 botanical literature of the parish was a paper in the Phytolog- 

 ist — « List of Plants observed in the dried-up bed of a Wear 

 on Luddenden-brook, in July, 1844." Some of these he 

 explains, were undoubtedly escapes from the sweepings of the 

 corn- mill a few hundred yards higher up the stream. But the 

 majority of the hundred or more enumerated are just such as 

 might be found there to-day. The only exceptions are the 

 primrose and yellow archangel, whose disappearance is the 

 only evidence of any changes brought about in more than half 

 a century. 



