CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 289 



My wife sends you her very humble service, and repeated 

 thanks for your great kindnesses, by the hand of. 



Sir, 

 Your very affectionate and much obUged 



friend and servant, 



John Ray. 



This letter should have been sent last post, but that I 

 failed of a messenger. I shall add now a question or 

 two more. 



1. Whether may not your Milkwood be the Pirm- 

 piniclii sive arbor lactescens of Monardes, which occurs in 

 the first tome of Jo. Bauhine ? 



2. Whether your sweet-scented Jamaica pepper be not 

 certainly a species really distinct from the Amorum aliud 

 quorimdam, and Caryophyllon Plinii of Clus., as I take 

 it undoubtedly to be from the leaf and fruit ? 



For Dr. Hans Sloane, 

 at his house at the corner of Southampton street, 

 towards Bloomsbury square, London. 



Mr. Ray to Dr. Hans Sloane. 



Black Notley, Aug. 25, —95. 



Sir, — I have this morning, by carrier, remitted the 

 three tribes you were pleased last to send me, and return 

 you thanks for the use of them. I am the more hasty 

 in despatching them, because, as I think I told you, 

 I would gladly have gone over the whole work before the 

 extreme colds come, which will render writing difficult 

 and troublesome to me, if it please God to produce my 

 life so long. 



I do not find anything amiss in matter or language. 

 I must impute it to my own dullness and incapacity if I 

 do not sometimes apprehend or rightly understand your 

 meaning. I was much surprised with your description 



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