56 THE LIFE AND WorK OF GEORGE DON. 
and plants as came within his reach. He wrote a bold hand, 
and his style was clear and vigorous. He was apprenticed to a 
clockmaker in the town of Dunblane, and there formed his first 
“hortus siccus,” consisting of all the flowering plants and mosses 
which he could collect in the neighbourhood. Unfortunately no 
trace of it is now extant. In the “Hortus Britannicus,” which 
he afterwards issued, he refers to some of the plants of the 
neighbourhood, for instance to Scolopendrium, No. 143, which 
came from a well at Dunblane. 
When he became a journeyman he removed to Glasgow,! and 
1 Gardiner, “Flora of Forfarshire,” 1848, Introduction, p. xii, says, 
without giving date :—‘“ While in this city [Glasgow] his unbounded love 
for botanical pursuits began to show itself so prominently that he obtained 
the situation of Assistant to the Professor of Botany in the University. 
os After remaining for some time in this place he went to Edinburgh, 
where he soon became acquainted with the Messrs. Dicksons, and these 
gentlemen introduced him to the notice of other votaries of the science, 
both Scotch and English, more particularly to Sir J. E. Smith, the President 
of the Linnean Society, who took a great interest in him, and warmly 
patronised his efforts to extend the knowledge of British Botany.” 
Mr. A. P. Stevenson of Dundee writes to me :—‘ Gardiner had no 
knowledge of Don directly, of course—he was born after Don’s death; but his 
uncle, Douglas Gardiner, who is referred to inthe Flora of Forfarshire, p. 61, 
‘as an intimate friend of Don,’ would know something of Don’s personal 
history and would not fail to tell his nephew. In one of Gardiner’s MS. 
magazines he says Douglas Gardiner had promised to contribute some 
biographical notices ; but unfortunately they never appeared.” 
As the Chair of Botany was not established in Glasgow until 1818 I 
applied to my friend Dr. Bower, Regius Professor of Botany in the University 
there, for information that might elucidate Gardiner’s statement regarding 
Don’s Assistantship, and he has been so good as to procure for me the 
following Notes bearing upon this question, which have been prepared by 
Mr. James Coutts, Assistant Clerk of Senate, University of Glasgow. They 
are an interesting contribution to the history of Botany in Scotland. 
“NOTES ON TEACHING OF BOTANY IN UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW FROM 
ABOUT 1779 TILL FOUNDATION OF CHAIR OF BOTANY IN 1818. 
“There is no mention in the minutes of a lecturer on Botany at Glasgow 
University about 1780 to 1790, and the references which occur to the 
subject of Botany would not lead one to infer that there was such a 
lecturer. The Professor of Anatomy was also Professor of Botany till a 
separate chair in the latter subject was founded in 1818. 
“In 1779 towards the end of Thomas Hamilton’s professorship, when his 
health was impaired, Dr. William Irvine, then Lecturer on Chemistry and 
