108 Selections from the Correspondence of » 



My respect to Mistress Colden, the Misses, and young Master 

 Colden : I have the honor to be, dear sir, your most humble 

 and obedient servant, Peter Kalm. 



Dr. Colden to Kalm. 



Sir— I have the favor of yours of the 4th of last month ; but 

 that which you mention to have wrote preceding never came to 

 my hands ; so that, till I received your last, I did not know 

 whether you had left America last fall, as you proposed, or not. 

 This made me lately write to Mr. Franklin, to know the cer- 

 tainty of it. I heartily wish you a happy voyage home, and 

 that at your return you may receive those rewards which your 

 labors richly deserve. In answer to the questions you put to 

 me, I shall inform you, as far as my knowledge allows me to 

 go, and in such manner as I judge best suits the view of your 

 queries. 



As to what you desire to know of myself, though the account 

 would come more properly from another, yet I shall briefly tell 

 you the principal turns of my life. My father was a minister 

 of the church of Scotland, and the oldest minister in it, before 

 he died. He was much esteemed for his piety and strict morals, 

 and had a considerable interest with many of the nobility. I 

 was educated at the University of Edinburgh. My father's view 

 in my education was for the church, as by his interest I could 

 have no doubt of preferment in it. But after I had gone through 

 the usual studies at the University, my inclinations were averse 

 to entering into orders in the church, and I applied myself to the 

 study of physic. I learned the rudiments of botany under Dr 

 Preston, whose name you'll find in Ray's Metkodus. I went 

 through a course of anatomy with Dr. Ariskine [Erskine ?], and 

 of chemistry with Mr. Wilson ; both of them distinguished in 

 their professions at London. The salaries of the ministers in 

 the church of Scotland are very small ; and the expense of my 

 education had so far exhausted my father's pocket, that I found 

 it was not in my power to make which it is necessary for a 

 young physician to do in Great Britain, on his first appearing in 

 the world. My mother had a sister in Philadelphia, a widow 

 who had acquired some estate and had no children, and this 

 induced me to try my fortune in America. I arrived at Phila- 

 delphia in the year 1710. Upon my arrival I became very in- 



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