1736.] TO SIR HANS SLOANE. 307 



JAMES LOGAN* TO JOHN BARTRAM. 



Friend J. Bartram : 



Last night, in the twilight, I received the inclosed, and opened 

 it by mistake. Last year Peter sent me some tables, which I 

 never examined till since I last saw thee. They are six very large 

 sheets, in which the author [LiNNiErs] digests all the produc- 

 tions of Nature in classes. Two of them he bestows on the 

 inanimate, as Stones, Minerals, Earths ; two more on Vegetables, 

 and the other two on Animals. His method in the Vegetables 

 is altoo-ether new, for he takes all his distinctions from the 



CD 



stamina and the styles, the first of which he calls husbands, and 

 the other wives. He ranges them, therefore, under those of 

 1 husband, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 20, and then of many 

 husbands. He further distinguishes by the styles, and has many 

 heads, under which he reduces all known plants. 



The performance is very curious, and at this time worth thy 

 notice. I would send it to thee, but being in Latin, it will want 

 some explanation, which, after I have given thee, thou wilt, I 

 believe, be fully able to deal with it thyself, since thou generally 

 knows the plants' names. If thou wilt step to town to-morrow, 

 thou wilt find me there with them, at E. Shippen's, or J. Pember- 



* James Logan, one of the primitive fathers of Pennsylvania, and greatly dis- 

 tinguished for his learning and -worth, was born in England, in the year 1674. 

 He came to America in company with William Penn, in 1699. In 1701, he was 

 appointed Secretary of the Province of Pennsylvania, and Clerk of the Council. 

 He afterwards held the offices of Commissioner of Property, Chief Justice, and 

 President of the Council. Upon the death of Governor Gordon, in October, 1736, 

 the government of course devolved upon him, as president of the council, and 

 during his administration of two years, the utmost harmony prevailed throughout 

 the province. 



Several years previous to his death, he retired from public affairs, and spent 

 the latter part of his life among his books, and in corresponding with learned men 

 in different parts of Europe. He died in 1751, aged seventy-seven years. The 

 well-known Loganian Library was bequeathed by him to the citizens of Philadel- 

 phia. In 1785 he published his experiments upon Maize, in support of the Lin- 

 nsean doctrine of the sexes of plants. The work was afterwards published in 

 Latin, at Leyden, 1739, and at London, by Dr. Fothergill, in Latin and English, 

 1717. In 1739 he published another Latin tract, at Leyden; and a translation of 

 Cicero's treatise, Be Senectute, at Philadelphia, in 1714. Blake's Biog. Diet. 



