484 Hrltl/}} 'yihural')gical Society. 



an apricot, a peach, an almond, a chelhiut, two wild chcft- 

 nuts, eioht luiall walnuts; making part of the colleiSlion of 

 trees entriiflcd to my care when I left France. 



" He made me lafte fome of the fruit of his bread-fruit 

 trees, which I found delicious. He diltributed fome to the 

 principal inhabitants of ihc colony, to induce them to culti- 

 vate them. That which we ate weighed eight pounds. Eight 

 ilill remain on the trees which have produced. Thefe trees 

 are 18 inches in circumference and 15 or 16 feet in height. 

 They would have been higher had they not been broken at 

 llie top bv the wind. 



" 1 cannot fuRicicntly e.xprefs the civilities I have expe- 

 rienced from the inhabitants of this illand. I have vifited 

 their gardens, and every where left feeds of the pulfe and 

 flowers of Europe. During our palTage I planted walnuts, 

 and raifed a multitude of young plants. I have diltributed 

 about thirty in the colony, and have fent feveral to the lllc 

 de la Reunion. 



" I cannot inform you whither we fliall go when we leave 

 the Tile de France. This day we have received orders to go 

 on board, and we are ready to fail. But every thing in our 

 expedition has been greatly changed : our touching here has 

 been hurtful to it \\\ more than one refpeft. The lailors have 

 deferted to go on board privateers. Some of them have been 

 eauidit. The captain has landed two lick officers. Several 

 of the naturalilis feem determined lo go no further: as for 

 inv part, I (liall proceed with the vellel wherever it goes." 



By a fecond letter, dated the next day, C. Reidlc an- 

 nounces that the departure of the vetTel was fixed for the 23d 

 of April; he thinks that they were bound to New Holland. 



BRITISH MINERALOGICAL SOCITV. 



In the beginning of the year j 799 a few gentlemen attached 

 to the ftudics of nuneralogy and chemiltrv, with the view of 

 illuftrating an interefting department in the natural hifiory of 

 their native country, which had hitherto been palled over with 

 flight regard, agreed to form an afl'ociation for this purpofc 

 under the name of the Britith Mineralogical Society, They 

 faw, with regret, while inftitutions of this kind were multi- 

 plying in the fta^es of Germany and other parts of the con-r 

 tiiient, that the Hrititli itlands, among tlieir general and pro- 

 vincial foeielies, poflefled none whofe attention was fpecially 

 direclcd to this important objeft. Without being jealous 

 of foreign interference, tliey were forry that Engliflinien 

 fhoukl be almoft wholly indebted to ftrangers for an ac^quaint- 

 ance with their own mineral trealurcs, and that the names 



Qf 



