xl BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



the project of a second voyage was mooted, as already 

 mentioned on p. xxvii. How this idea was received by 

 Linnaeus, the following extracts from his correspondence 

 with Ellis will show : 



I have just read, in some foreign newspapers, that our friend 

 Solander intends to revisit those new countries, discovered by Mr. 

 Banks and himself, in the ensuing spring. This report has affected 

 me so much as almost entirely to deprive me of sleep. How vain 

 are the hopes of man ! Whilst the whole botanical world, like myself, 

 has been looking for the most transcendent benefits to our science, 

 from the unrivalled exertions of your countrymen, all their matchless 

 and truly astonishing collection, such as has never been seen before, 

 nor may ever be seen again, is to be put aside untouched, to be thrust 

 into some corner, to become perhaps the prey of insects and of 

 destruction. 



I have every day been figuring to myself the occupations of my 

 pupil Solander, now putting his collection in order, having first 

 arranged and numbered his plants, in parcels, according to the places 

 where they were gathered, and then written upon each specimen its 

 native country and appropriate number. I then fancied him throw- 

 ing the whole into classes, putting aside and naming such as were 

 already known; ranging others under known genera, with specific 

 differences, and distinguishing by new names and definitions such as 

 formed new genera, with their species. Thus, thought I, the world 

 will be delighted and benefited by all these discoveries ; and the 

 foundations of true science will be strengthened, so as to endure 

 through all generations ! 



I am under great apprehension that, if this collection should 

 remain untouched till Solander's return, it might share the same 

 lot as Forskal's Arabian specimens at Copenhagen. . . . Solander 

 promised long ago, while detained off the coast of Brazil, in the early 

 part of his voyage, that he would visit me after his return, of which 

 I have been in expectation. If he had brought some of his specimens 

 with him, I could at once have told him what were new ; and we 

 might have turned over some books together, and he might have been 

 informed or satisfied upon many subjects, which after my death will 

 not be so easily explained. 



I have no answer from him to the letter I enclosed to you, which 

 I cannot but wonder at. You, yourself, know how much I have 

 esteemed him, and how strongly I recommended him to you. 



By all that is great and good, I entreat you, who know so well the 

 value of science, to do all that in you lies for the publication of these 

 new acquisitions, that the learned world may not be deprived of 

 them. . . . 



Again the plants of Solander and Banks recur to my imagination. 



