Aprit.1907.] PATRICK BLAIR, SURGEON APOTHECARY. 267 
be Englished was worth considering; but there was no 
English terminology as yet to take the place of the Latin. 
And then there was this pupil and that friend come to 
London whom “dear Mr. Petiver” was asked to be of service 
to. One youth “had an impediment in his speech, but was 
otherwise very knowing in the apothecary art,” was on his 
way to Jamaica ; “ would Mr, Petiver (who also was an apothe- 
cary) try and recommend him to a shop to keep him from 
being idle till he can have passage.” Mr. Lyon, by the way, 
got passage, but had the misfortune to be taken prisoner on 
his voyage to Jamaica and carried into France, and a year 
later he is back at Mr. Petiver’s and still set on going to the 
West Indies. 
Again, Mr. James Dundas bears a letter to Petiver, a 
special friend of the Doctor’s, “ whose particular study is the 
mathematics, wherein he has attained to such a degree of 
knowledge that he has acquired a great esteem in these parts ”; 
would Mr. Petiver give himself the trouble to introduce 
Mr. Dundas to such as he thinks would be useful to him in 
that science? Mr. Dundas will tell him all about the Garden, 
which has now been in existence for three seasons. 
He tells how Dr. Wm, Raitt, a neighbour, had recently 
ealled on Tournefort, and from what he had told him he, 
Dr. B., was not surprised to hear of Tournefort’s death ; 
it was, however, “a general loss to the vegetable. kingdom.” 
The letters are mostly dated from Dundee, although occa- 
sionally, in 1711 and 1712, “ Coupar-in-Angus” appears, and 
then the desire grows to have a personal knowledge of Sloane 
and Petiver, “ although the loss to his business here for such 
a time and the charge of the journey are two great impedi- 
ments.” Still, he thinks the seeing and communing with 
his friends would “abundantly compense that, because I 
may acquaint you with a great many things that paper 
will not bear,” 
The journey was made, but there is no information given 
as to how the distance was covered, whether by ship from 
Dundee or Leith, as his specimens and drugs came or went, 
or by that coach which in October 1712 began to run 
between Edinburgh and London, performing the journey, as 
the advertisement states, “in thirteen days without any 
stoppage (if God permits), having eighty able horses to 
