308 JOHN BARTRAM TO [1738. 



ton's, from 12 to 3. I want also to say something further to thee, 

 on microscopical observations. 



Thy real friend, 



J. Logan. 



Stenton, 19th of June, 1736. 



JOHN BARTRAM TO J. J. DILLENIUS.* 



August the 1st, 1738. 



Respected Friend Doctor Dillenitts : 



I am very thankful to thee for thy kind letter, and if thee thinks 

 me worthy of thy friendship, and that I can oblige thee, pray write 

 often to me, and let me know wherein I can serve thee. * * 



* * I never saw our great Laurel \_It1iododendron~\ grow any 

 where but near Schuylkill, though I have been told it grows beyond 

 the mountains. Up Delaware river it grows near the water, upon 

 the steep bank side, on poor dry soil, sometimes on the flats, high 

 up the river, where it is dry, poor, and sandy. There it grows ten 

 feet high, but will bear flowers at five feet high, in great white 

 lunches. 



Thee mentions the Cornelian Cherry, with a Bay leaf, growing 

 in Virginia, mentioned by Doctor Plukenet. I do not, at present, 

 know what tree he means, nor how he describes it, never yet hav- 

 ing an opportunity of reading that valuable author, though often 

 desired it. I believe it neither is, nor was ever in Pennsylva- 



* John James Dillenius, M.D., whose name is familiar to every student of 

 < j ; ptogamic Botany, and whose Historic/, Muscorum, published in 1741, still remains 

 unrivalled in that department, with regard to botanical learning and criticism, as 

 well as specific discrimination, was born at Darmstadt, in Germany, in 1684 or 

 1685. He was educated as a physician at Giessen, and while resident there, pub- 

 lished several botanical essays, of considerable acuteness. Being brought to Eng- 

 land by the distinguished William Sherard, the greatest botanist of his day, who 

 had been English consul at Smyrna, Dillenius remained here from August, 1721, 

 till his death. He was closely attached to consul Sherard, and his brother 

 James, an opulent apothecary, who had a garden at Eltham ; of the rare plants of 

 which Dillenius published, in 1732, a splendid history, in two folio volumes, 

 under the title of Hortus Elthamensis, the plates, like those of all his other publi- 

 cations, being drawn and engraved with his own hand. They excel in character- 

 istic fidelity. 



Consul Sherard, in founding his botanical professorship at Oxford, appointed 

 Dillenius the first professor, which place he held, fulfilling its duties, with respect 

 to the garden at least, very assiduously, till he died there of an apoplexy, April 

 2d, 1747, in the sixty-third year of his age. Smith's Linnozan Correspondeiicc. 



