INTRODUCTION. Ixxi 



attention, however, of Doctor Rydberg, to whom the edi- 

 tor is indebted for the translation, the greater part has 

 been pretty well made out. His notes are carried on to 

 the end of the journey upwards, but are not continued on 

 his return down the river. He was taken ill, before they 

 reached the vessels, and came down with the Captain in 

 the last canoe : and was sent with him to the Trans- 

 port, for the sake of greater convenience : by this time 

 however, he was dangerously ill, and refused to take any 

 thing, either in the shape of medicine, or nutriment. He 

 had tried bark, but his stomach constantly rejected it : 

 and under an idea that his illness proceeded only from 

 debility, he persisted in taking only cold water. On the 

 21st September he became delirious, and died on the fol- 

 lowing day. 



Mr. Cranch was one of those extraordinary self-taught 

 characters, to whom particular branches of science are 

 sometimes more indebted, than to the labours of those 

 Avho have had the advantage of a regular education. He 

 was born at Exeter in the year 1785 of humble, but res- 

 pectable parents ; at eight years of age he had the misfor- 

 tune to lose his father ; and as the circumstances in which 

 his mother was left, did not enable her to provide for all 

 her children, John, the subject of the present memoir, was 

 taken charge of by an uncle living at Kingsbridge. The 

 main object in life, and which was nearest to the heart of 

 this relation, was the accumulation of wealth ; and his ex- 

 treme penury denied to his nephew almost the benefit of a 

 common education. The miserable guinea which pro- 

 cured for him a year's instruction in reading, writing, and 



