1753.] CHARLES LINNAEUS. 371 



JOHN BARTRAM TO CHARLES LINNiEUS.* 



[Not dated, 1752 or 3.] 



Respected and worthy Friend: 



I received, about two months past, a letter from thee dated 

 August the 10th, 1750. f I was exceedingly pleased to receive so 

 kind a letter from one that so deservedly hears so superior a cha- 

 racter for learning ; but was very much concerned that I could not 

 have had it sooner than above two years after it was wrote ; and 

 much the same misfortune happened to several pamphlets thee 

 sent to Dr. Colden and Mr. Clayton, which our worthy friend 

 Benjamin Franklin showed me last week, which he had just 

 received, and intended to send according to direction, by the next 

 post. 



I travelled, in 1751, most part of the autumn, and found several 

 new species of plants, and shrubs, which I should have sent to thee, 

 if I had known they would have been acceptable. 



We have four or five beautiful species of Jacobcea [Liliwrri], that 

 you have not in Europe. One species grows in our marshes, 

 another on flat stiff ground, another on cold shady banks, by the 

 rivers, another on loose slaty soil on the great mountains ; and 

 most of these species are much valued by the Indians, and back 

 inhabitants, for the cure of the same diseases that the ancients used 

 their Jacobcea for, though not one of them knew the name of the 

 plant. 



I hope thee hath received the Medicina Britannica.% I hope 

 to send thee some specimens next fall. We are all surprised that 

 we have not one letter from Peter Kalm. 



[Also without date, perhaps 1753.] 



To Linn^us : 



Respected friend, As I wrote to thee last spring, and have yet 

 received no answer, I have not much to say. 



* No biographical notice of " the immortal Swede" is deemed requisite here, 

 except perhaps, merely to say that he was born May 24th, 1707, and died 

 January 11th, 1778, aged near seventy-one years. 



f The letters from Linn^us to John Baeteam are all missing. 



\ An American edition of a work with that title, with notes and an appendix by 

 John Baeteam, published at Philadelphia in the year 1751. 



