Ixx INTRODUCTION. 
island. They next visited the port of Naos, on the isle of 
Lancerota, where the vessel was to complete her cargo 
with barilla, made from the Mesembryanthemum crystalli- 
num. In the mean time, the two naturalists paid a visit to 
the volcano, which, in 1750, almost entirely destroyed 
twelve villages, and covered nearly the third part of the 
island. Instead of one mouth they observed fifteen or 
sixteen, extending in the same line about six English miles, 
each having formed a cone from three to four hundred feet 
high. Across the middle of these mouths were large 
fissures, exhaling aqueous vapours, which raised the ther- 
mometer ina few moments to 180°. Onthe 27th October, 
they re-embarked, and arrived at Portsmouth on the 8th 
December. 
It was the intention of Dr. Smith to arrange his Flora 
for publication, in London, and then return to his native 
country ; but on Sir Joseph Banks proposing the appoint- 
ment of botanist, to an expedition then preparing to ex- 
plore the Zaire, he most readily and unconditionally 
accepted the same, from a pure love of science, and in the 
hope of being useful to the world. His Journal, which is 
now published precisely in the state it was found, is 
sufficient to evince his great zeal, and qualifications 
as a botanist. It is but just however to the memory of . 
the deceased to state, that this Journal had evidently un- 
dergone no revision, but is a transcript or rather a trans- 
lation of his original minutes and observations, as they 
appear to have been entered, from day to day, in a 
small pocket memorandum book ; written in the Danish 
language, and in so small and illformed a character as 
in some places to be perfectly illegible. By the close 
