1744.1 TO JOHN BARTRAM. 363 



nicated Mr. Peters' letters ; having Mr. Thomson promised me 

 to give answers to them in my name. When you see Mr. Peters, 

 tell him that. 



I send you here a copy of the new-invented stove : but of a 

 Dutch translation of his experiments upon the electricite, I don't 

 know anything. But in few days I go to Amsterdam ; if I find 

 it there, I shall send it immediately to Mr. Collinson, by a friend 

 that goes in a few weeks to London. Pray my service to Mr. 

 Franklin. I wish I could do to you and him any service. I 

 wish you good success with your book about trees. Wherewith 

 wishing to you all health and prosperity, I remain, dear friend, 

 your most obedient servant, 



Joh. Fred. Gronovius. 



Leyden, 10 Juny, 1754. 



JOHN BARTRAM TO JOHN MITCHELL.* 



June the 3d, 1744. 



Doctor Mitchell : 



I have now before me thy kind letter of May the 5th, which 

 pleaseth me well. I should have been exceedingly pleased to have 

 been acquainted with thee when I travelled in your country, in the 

 year 1738, when I lodged in Fredericksburgh ; from whence I 

 travelled near sixty miles down Rappahannock, thence over Dra- 

 gon Bridge to John Clayton's (where I was disappointed of seeing 

 him, he being gone towards the mountains), thence to Williams- 

 burgh ; so up James River to Goochland, where I saw a pretty 

 little tree of the Arbor vitas, on the west bank of the river. It 

 was about six inches diameter. Thence travelling to your Blue 

 Mountains, headed Rappahannock, fell upon the branches of 

 Shenandoah, a great branch of Potomac, kept the great vale, 

 between the North and South Mountains, till crossing Susque- 



* John Mitchell, M.D., a botanist and physician, came from England to 

 Virginia, about the year 1700. He died in 1772. His residence was chiefly at 

 Urbana, a small town on the Rappahannock, about seventy-three miles from 

 Richmond. He appears to have been a man of observation, acuteness, and enter- 

 prise, as well as learning. Among his various publications, was a useful work on 

 the general principles of Botany, containing descriptions of a number of new 

 genera of plants, 4to., 1769. The worth and scientific labours of Dr. Mitchell 

 will be effectually commemorated among Botanists, by the beautiful little Ame- 

 rican perennial which bears his name (Mitchella repents, L.). Blake's Bioy. Diet. 



