TUB POTATO TEECENTBNAEY. 



169 



he says of a certain root whicli ho found, and which there 

 seems very good reason for identifying with our own 

 potato : — 



" Opcnauk aro a Idndc of roots of round forme, some of the bignesse 

 of Walnuts, some farre greater, which aro found in moist and marish 

 grounds growing many together one by anotlior in ropes, as though they 

 were fastened with a string. Being boiled or sodden, they are very good 

 meat."— Uakluyt, lUack-Lettc.r Ed., vol. iii., p. 272. 



There aro many other descriptions of natural products ; 

 and, in short, Harriot seems to have boon, as we should say 

 in modern parhmcc, the naturalist of the expedition. He 

 was in the country for twelve months, and had ample oppor- 

 tunities of observing. Under these circumstances it seems 

 quite reasonable to assume, in the absence of positive evi- 

 dence, that if any one of the company on board Drake's ship 

 was more concerned than another in bringing over the 

 potato, that one was Harriot. 



It must be allowed that there is one serious difficulty in 

 the view I have advocated, or in any view whioh assumes 

 that the potato came from Virginia. The potato is not 

 indigenous in Virginia, nor within a thousand miles of Vir- 

 ginia. Mr. Mitchell, at the conference, expressed his belief 

 that Drake obtained the tubers in South America, where he 

 liad boon before calling for the colonists in Virginia. But 

 against that view must bo placed the fact that those roots, 

 on their introduction, and for many years aftci'vvards, were 

 always called Virginian potatoes, oven by botanists — an 

 error, if it was an error, which could scarcely have escaped 

 correction when the facts were fresh in memory. Mi'. Car- 

 ruthers, at the conference, suggested, if I understand the 

 report correctly, that the potato, though not indigenous in 

 Virginia, might have spread thither by cultivation. There 

 is said to be good evidence that the Indians of South 



