Cultivation of Botany in EtiglatiJ. iSS 



latter are his favourites,) are laid out with the utmost care in 

 octavo papers, and packed in cases, so as to be ready to be 

 taken on board ship again at a moment's notice. 



Sir Archibald Menzies informed us, with evident pleasure, 

 that two of his countrymen (of Scotland) are about to enjoy 

 the same privilege of travelling as his own youth had received; 

 — a Mr. MacGray having been sent as a botanist, in that ves- 

 sel which carried home the remains of the king of the Sand- 

 wich Islands, to the South Seas ; and another, Mr. Douglas, 

 being gone, in a similar capacity, to the Columbia River. A 

 Mr. Frost, also, has visited America. From Menzies, too, we 

 learned that Brodie, lieutenant of the county of Nairn and 

 member of parliament, has lately died. 



At Mr. Lambert's Museum we had the great good fortune 

 to become acquainted with Dr. Richai'dson, the celebrated com- 

 panion of Capt. Fi-anklin in his expedition to Arctic America. 

 This gentleman, who lives at Chatham, was so obliging as to 

 show us his herbarium, which contains many rarities, and a 

 great number of new species, particularly belonging to the 

 genera Ranunculus, JRubus, and Potentilla. Before starting on 

 the voyage which he will undertake next year in the direction 

 of the North Pole, — for not all the ice of those frozen regions 

 has power to cool his ardour in the cause of science, — Dr. Rich- 

 ardson will prepare a new edition of his Appendix. 



Mr. Andrews the botanist was not at home ; he is proceed- 

 ing with his works on the EriccE and Gerania. 



At the British Museum we had expected to find a treasure 

 of Natural History; but,— except Sloane's collection of dried 

 plants in thirty volumes, and an herbarium which belonged 

 to a Mr. Van Moll, with a small but well preserved set of 

 British birds, — we found nothing that interested us at all. 

 The department of Minerals is beautifully arranged by the 

 celebrated German, Mr. Kiinig ; but except some very rare 

 uni(|ue specimens, it is inferior to the two collections at Paris, 

 belonging to the Museum and the Ecole des Mines, as well as 

 that oithe Academy at Munich. Two tables that we saw here, 

 covered with beautiful specimens of Carjiolitlia, would engage 

 tlie attention of Count Sternberg for weeks ; and he would be 

 delighted to compare them with those treasures that he is him- 

 self so well accjuainted with, and has so liberally communi- 

 cated to the public. An immense building is in progress; with 

 the addition of which the British Museum, now of inconside- 

 rable size, will fill an entire s(|uare of the city of London. But 

 to render this institution as rich in subjects of Natural History 

 as it is in antitjues, or as the Museum d'Histoire Naturclle at 

 Paris was, or as is the collection of Lcyden in the department 



N. S. Vol. 6. No. 3G. J)cc. 1829. 3 K of 



