98 Selections from the Correspondence of 



York, or by the Philadelphia ships to the care of Mr. Benjamin 

 Franklin, Postmaster in Philadelphia, they will come safe to my 

 hands. 



Dr. Colden to Gronovius. 



Coldengham, in New York, Oct. 29th, 1745. 



Dear Sir — I answered yours of the 3d of April, 1744, near 

 twelve months gone, directed to the care of our common friend 

 Mr. Collinson of London ; which he tells me he has carefully 

 transmitted to you. This is destined to be sent likewise to his 

 care, since he is pleased with having this trouble put upon him. 

 I am so little acquainted with the merchants in this place who 

 trade directly to Holland, that the ships are commonly gone be- 

 fore I hear any thing of them. Besides, most of these merchants 

 and masters of vessels are very careless of any thing of which 

 they have no prospect of any profit. 



With this, I send you the characters of some more plants, 

 which I observed this year, and some corrections or additions to 

 what I before observed, some dried specimens, and some seeds. 

 I have presumed, with that freedom which is I think allowed in 

 all philosophical inquiries, to mention some further difficulties 

 which arise to me in the Linnsean system ; and though you may 

 perhaps easily solve them by showing my ignorance in botany 

 as a science, yet, as probably the same difficulties may occur to 

 others, it may be of some use, by giving you an opportunity of 

 clearing up this matter, to others less versant in that science. * * * 



My opinion that we have no species of plants in America pre- 

 cisely the same with those of Europe, requires much more know- 

 ledge of the plants than I can pretend to in support of it. But 

 at the same time it will be difficult to demonstrate that it is false ; 

 for certainly some species differ, in which it is difficult to show 

 the difference in words. For a carpenter can know a chip of 

 one kind of timber from another, and can distinguish a piece of 

 American oak from the English. We, who are used to the 

 woods, can distinguish the trees and their several species by the 

 bark alone ; and yet I believe the most able botanist would be 

 puzzled to describe either the grain of the several kinds of tim- 

 ber, or the differences of the superficies of the bark, so as to en- 

 able a stranger to distinguish them without further assistance. 

 As to animals. I have never seen any precisely the same. 



