iy ADVERTISEMENT. 



The Editor found the correspondence so much to his own taste, that he imagined 

 it might be gratifying to others, to peruse such evidences of devotion to Natural 

 Science, in one of' the primitive worthies of Chester County ; and under that im- 

 pression, he transcribed such portions as appeared to be illustrative of the cha- 

 racter and labours of the man. 



Scarcely was this pleasing task accomplished, when a voluminous mass of 

 papers, consisting chiefly of the correspondence of John Bartbam, was also put 

 into the hands of the Editor, and with a like permission as the preceding, by 

 Colonel Robert Carr, proprietor of the Bartram Garden, who is married to a 

 granddaughter of the distinguished Pennsylvania Botanist, and to whom those 

 interesting records now belong. For this rare privilege, the Editor is primarily 

 indebted to the partiality and kind intervention of his esteemed friends, Thomas 

 P. James and Daniel B. Smith, of Philadelphia, whose anxiety for the preserva- 

 tion of such portions of the correspondence as are still extant (for much of it is 

 irrecoverably lost), induced them to solicit the favour ; but, it is due to the de- 

 scendants of the Botanical Patriarch of our country, to add, that the privilege 

 referred to, together with all the collateral information in their possession, was 

 promptly and most obligingly granted. 



Here, then, a new field of labour was unexpectedly presented, kindred in its 

 nature, indeed, but of much greater extent than the preceding, and beset with 

 more difficulties. Those ancient manuscripts were not only jumbled together in 

 a chaotic mass, but were generally much injured by time, and many of them 

 scarcely legible ; so that it required no little care and patient perseverance, to 

 decipher and arrange them. This was especially the case with the letters from 

 John Bartram to his friends, of which letters he seems to have been in the habit 

 of retaining the original rough draughts. It is, in fact, too probable, that if the 

 opportunity thus kindly afforded by Colonel Carr and his lady, had not been em- 

 braced, the portion of the Correspondence here preserved would, ere long, have 

 been scattered among the various branches of the family, and the recovery of it 

 rendered wholly impracticable.* 



But the work is now performed. A large remnant of the epistolary corre- 



* It is to be hoped, that the originals of these letters may yet pass into the safe- 

 keeping of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and thus be handed down to a 

 curious and grateful posterity. 



