BAKER : FATHERS OF YORKSHIRE BOTANY. 1 93 



he visited Craven, and was the first to record Polemonium 

 coeruleum from Malham Cove. He published several books, 

 the best known of which is his ' Synopsis Conchyliorum,' 

 which contains figures of all the shells that were then known. 

 There is no letterpress except the names which accompany the 

 plates, which were engraved for him by his two daughters, 

 Anna and Susanna Lister. In 1684 he removed to London, 

 and after attending the Earl of Portland on his embassy to 

 Paris for William III, he became physician to Queen Anne, 

 and died in 17 11. 



The best botanist of Ray's generation who lived in the north 

 of England was Thomas Lawson. Thomas Lawson was a young 

 clergyman just instituted to the living of Rampside, in Furness, 

 when George Fox visited that region in 1652. Lawson lent him 

 his pulpit for a day and Fox preached in it to such purpose that 

 he convinced the priest and many of his congregation. Lawson 

 gave up his living and removed to Great Strickland, a village a 

 few miles south of Penrith, where he opened a school, at which 

 he taught the young Lowthers and the sons of many other of the 

 neighbouring gentry. He wrote several religious and controver- 

 sial books, and in 1688, three years before his death, sent to Ray 

 a long list of localities for rare plants in the north, which is 

 printed in full at page 197 of the edition of Ray's letters, which 

 was edited for the Ray Society in 1848, by Dr. Lankester. After 

 him were named Hieracium Lmuso?ii and the genus Lawsonia 

 in Lythraces. Ray's other Yorkshire correspondents were 

 Thoresby, of Leeds, the antiquarian, and two Shefiield gentle- 

 men, Mr. Samuel Fisher and Mr. Francis Jessop. 



The best botanist in the country in the generation that 

 followed the death of Ray was John Jacob Dillenius, who became 

 the first professor of botany at Oxford. He was a native of 

 Darmstadt, and was born about 1680. He studied at the 

 University of Giessen, and wrote a capital account of the flora of 

 that neighbourhood, in which 140 new mosses, and 90 new fungi 

 are noticed. This attracted the notice of Dr. William Sherard, 

 who had been consul at Smyrna, and accumulated there a con- 



