Cadwallader Colden with Gronovias, Li?mceus, fye. Ill 



JEgyptiacii'm. It will give me the greatest pleasure to hear of 

 your safe arrival at home, and that you have published the fruits 

 of your labors in America. Mr. Franklin, at Philadelphia, will 

 take care of any letters for me, or Mr. Collinson in London. 



The Colden papers comprise three letters from Linnaeus. The 

 earliest is dated at Upsal, on the 6th of August, 1747, and was 

 sent by a clergyman by the name of Sandin, who came to Penn- 

 sylvania. It contains a few remarks upon the manuscript Planta, 

 C olden hamics, then in his possession, and a request that he 

 would send dried plants and seeds. The second, without par- 

 ticular date, was written in the same year, and brought by Kalm, 

 and contains many notes and queries respecting the plants of 

 Colden's manuscript. To these, Dr. Colden replied at length in 

 his letter of February 9th, 1748-9 (O. S.), and in another en- 

 trusted to Kalm a year after ; which having both been pub- 

 lished in full by Smith, in his Correspondence of Linnc&ns, need 

 not be reproduced here. The first is chiefly occupied with Col- 

 den's views respecting the nature of genera, &c, which are sub- 

 stantially the same with those given in his letters to Gronovius. 

 Linnaeus briefly alludes to this subject in the following epistle. 



Viro Illustri Convallad. Colden s. pi. d. Car. Linnaeus. 



Literas tuas vir illustris, 1748-9, Febr. 9 datas, accepi, et sum- 

 ma animi voluptate perlegi, utpote datas a Fautore longe remoto 

 et curiosissimo. Sententiam quam fores de generatione planta- 

 rum ad instructionem generum, eadem est quam proposuit D. 

 Mitchel in Actis Naturae Curiosorum ; statuis plantas ejusdem 

 generis esse, quae possunt genitura sese miscere ; at ego has varie- 

 tates dico, nee distincta genera. Sint exempli gratia Ranunculi 

 species diversae, quas nullus negabit genere convenire, attamen hae 

 nulla ratione possunt sese miscere aut una alteram faecundare : 

 sed Tulipae [quaedam] et Brassicae, quae tantum sunt varietates, 

 miscentur facillime. 



Dubia et obscura in re herbaria circa terminos et leges varias 

 systematis explicavi in Philosophia Botanica, quae etiamnum 

 sudat, quam cum etiamnum e prelo non prodiit, doleo me hac 

 vice ad te, vir illustris, mittere non posse. Habebis in eo libello 

 omnia dubia enodata, quam primum prodeat. 



