CORRESPONDENCE OP RAY. 295 



Mr. E.AY to Dr. Hans Sloane. 



Black Notley, June 23, —96. 



Sir, — I received your very kind letter of June 6th, 

 and not long after the acceptable present of yoiu* book, 

 for which I return you many thanks. I cannot but 

 admire your industry and patience in reading and com- 

 paring such a multitude of relations and accounts of 

 voyages, and referring to its proper place what you found 

 therein relating to your subject, and that with so much 

 circumspection and judgment. You have done botanists 

 great service in distributing or reducing the confused 

 heap of names, and contracting the number of species. 

 But who is able to do the like ? No man but who is 

 alike qualified, and hath seen the things growing in their 

 natm-al places. Por my own part, I do freely acknow- 

 ledge myself altogether insufficient for such a task, having 

 not seen the plants themselves, nor of many of them 

 so much as dried specimens, and of the rest having had 

 but a transient view. I shall therefore put down what 

 I find in late writers, viz., Plukenet's ' Phytography,' 

 the remaining six volumes of ' Hortus Malabaricus,' 

 Pather Plumier's ' Schola Botanica,' ' Paradisi Batavi 

 Prodrom.,' ' Plorae Batavse Plores,' Tournefort's ' Elem. 

 Botan.,' Breynius, his two Prodromi, and, above all, yoiu- 

 ' Catalogue and History of the Plants of Jamaica and the 

 Neighbour Islands,' which you are pleased so frankly to 

 ofier me the use of, without interposing my own judg- 

 ment. Did I live about London, and had I opportunity 

 frequently to visit the physic gardens thereabouts, and 

 to observe and describe the new species, I might make a 

 better Supplement to my History than now I shall do, 

 my circumstances not admitting so long an absence 

 from this place. I have been lately very ill and indis- 

 posed, with a hoarseness and violent cough, attended 



