102 TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. lviii. 



affluents. After working up and disposing of his Pyreneau 

 plants, he prepared himself for future work by studying 

 exotic plants at Kew and the British Museum. In the 

 latter place he met Eobert Brown, for whom he had the 

 highest esteem as a botanist, and whose descriptions of 

 plants he considered as models. Having mentioned Eobert 

 Brown, it would perhaps not be out of place to say that at 

 this time Dr. Spruce numbered among his correspondents 

 Dr. Montagne (one of Napoleon's army surgeons in Egypt), 

 Dufour, Bruch, Schimper, Gottsche, Sullivant, W. J. Hooker, 

 Bentham, Greville, Taylor, Borrer, Wilson, Leighton, Babing- 

 ton, Hanbury, Mitten, etc. 



In his early manhood Dr. Spruce, who was never robust, 

 was considered by some to be consumptive. He was 

 offered a position on board one of the ships of a Franklin 

 Search Expedition. This he declined, preferring the climate 

 of South America. 



Having by this time, by sheer merit, attracted the 

 attention and esteem of botanical authorities, he received, 

 amongst others, commissions from Kew ; and on the 7th 

 of June 1849 embarked for America, and arrived at Para 

 on 13th July. This is not the place to give a detailed 

 account of his travels and work in South America. In 

 1886, in the " Eevue Bryologique," he gave a brief and 

 most interesting 'precis of his travels, written in French, 

 and entitled " Voyage de E. Spruce dans Amerique 

 Equatoriale pendant 1849-1864." Sir Eoderick Murchison, 

 in 1864, then President of the Eoyal Geographical Society, 

 briefly summarised his geographical work thus : — " I have 

 pleasure in announcing that the indefatigable explorer Mr. 

 E. Spruce, who has for fifteen years been unceasingly 

 employed in scientific labours in the valley of the Elver 

 Amazon and in the Andes of Ecuador, is on his way to 

 England. Of his great services to botany it is not for me 

 to speak, but his geographical work is entitled to special 

 thanks at my hands. Mr. Spruce left England in the 

 year 1849, and landed at Para, whence he proceeded up 

 • the Eiver Amazon and explored several of its least-known 

 affluents. In 1849 he ascended and made a map of the 

 Eiver Tombetas, an important tributary of the Amazon, 

 which was hitherto unsurveyed. In 1853 and 1854 he 



