40 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



an enterprising merchant of Philadelphia] undertook to convey 

 them to the celebrated Peter Collinson, of London. This laid 

 the foundation of that friendship and correspondence, which con- 

 tinued uninterrupted and even increasing for near fifty years of 

 the lives of these two eminent men. Collinson, ever the disinte- 

 rested friend, communicated from time to time to the learned in 

 Europe, the discoveries and observations of Bartram. It was 

 principally through the interest of Collinson that he became ac- 

 quainted, and entered into a correspondence, with many of the 

 most celebrated literary characters in Europe. 



" He employed much of his time in travelling through the dif- 

 ferent provinces of North America, at that time subject to England. 

 Neither dangers nor difficulties impeded or confined his researches 

 after objects in natural history. The summits of our highest 

 mountains were ascended and explored by him. The lakes 

 Ontario, Iroquois, and George ; the shores and sources of the rivers 

 Hudson, Delaware, Schuylkill, Susquehanna, Alleghany, and San 

 Juan, were visited by him at an early period, when it was truly 

 a perilous undertaking to travel in the territories, or even on the 

 frontiers of the aborigines.* 



" He travelled several thousand miles in Carolina and Florida. 

 At the advanced age of near seventy years, embarking on board of 

 a vessel at Philadelphia, he set sail for Charleston, in South Caro- 

 lina. From thence he proceeded, by land, through part of Carolina 

 and Georgia, to St. Augustine, in East Florida. When arrived at 

 the last-mentioned place, being then appointed botanist and 



* As evidences of his talents and enthusiastic devotion to. natural science, 

 the following passages, from letters of his contemporaries, may not be inajjpro- 

 priate. 



Peter Collinson, writing to Dr. Golden, March 7, 1741, says of John Bar- 

 tram "I am persuaded you would have been pleased with him; you would 

 have found a wonderful natural genius, considering his education, and that he 

 was never out of America, but is an husbandman. * * * * * His observa- 

 tions and accounts of all natural productions that happen in his way (and I 

 believe few escape him) are much esteemed here for their accuracy." Dr. 

 Golden, in a letter to P. Collinson, dated Nov. 13, 1744, says "I had the plea- 

 sure of seeing Mr. Bartram at my house, this summer. It is really surprising 

 what knowledge that man has attained merely by the force of industry and his 

 own genius. He has a lively fancy, and a surprising memory and indefatigable 

 disposition." Dr. Garden to Dr. Colden, writing from Philadelphia, Nov. 4, 

 17o4, says "One day he dragged me out of town, and entertained me so agree- 

 ably with some elevated botanical thoughts on oaks, ferns, rocks, &c, that I 

 forgot I was hungry till we landed in his house, about four miles from town." 



