xl Presidents Address. [July 28, 



smart imder-gardener to tlie Cape to collect seeds, and send homo 

 living plants. Tlie scheme -was favourabl}' received, and in 1772 

 Masson was selected for the work, and left England for the Cape. 

 Here he remained two years and a half, collecting as usual in the 

 environs of the Cape Peninsula, and making excursions into the up- 

 country, three of which journeys were of considerable extent. His 

 guide on the first of these was a Swedish soldier named Oldenburg, 

 formerl}^ in the Dutch East India Company's service, and who had 

 been a humble companion and assistant to Thunberg in his botanical 

 travels. Oldenburg had learnt sometliing of the artoi botanicrc from 

 Thunberg, and had collected plants probably for sale. A collection 

 of one thousand of these, purchased by Sir Joseph Banks, is pre- 

 served in the British Museum. Subsequently, in September, 1773, 

 and again in 1774, at the same season of the year, Masson accom- 

 panied Thunberg on excursions lasting in each case about four 

 months. Towards the north the travellers penetrated no further than 

 the Olifant's River, and eastwards as far as the Zwartkops and Yisch 

 E-iver. Masson's collection of living plants and seeds seems to have 

 given much satisfaction to his patrons, for Sir Joseph Banks, in a 

 memorandum addressed to the King, ascribes the superiority of the 

 Royal garden, which had by degrees, under Aiton's management, 

 eclipsed those of the continent, in great part to the labours of Masson- 

 In those clays the number of species cultivated was a large element 

 in the value of a collection, and hence travellers, fortunately for 

 systematic botany, did not hesitate to send home for culture plants 

 of homely aspect and little horticultural beauty. Thus the earlier 

 volumes of the Botanical Magazine (^') contain many Cape plants of 

 Masson's sending, which have since dropped completely out of culti- 

 vation, and are not likely to attain that dignit}^ again. They are 

 sufficiently represented by herbarium specimens. Masson did not 

 neglect this mode of collecting. His exsiccata seem all to have been 

 sent to Aiton, the Garden Superintendent at Kew, and Alton, more a 

 gardener than a systematic botanist, transferred the greater portion 

 of them to the botanical department of the British Museum, where 

 they are now preserved. 



After a short stay in England, Masson again solicited employment 

 abroad, and, at the instance of the same patrons, was sent to the West 

 India Islands, via Madeira, Teneriffe, and the Azores, with the view 

 of ultimately reaching Central America. T]io breaking out of a war 

 with Spain, however, prevented his accomplishing more than a part 

 of the plan sketched out. In 1782 he returned to l^^ngland, and next 

 year started on a collecting mission to Portugal. He crossed the 

 Straits and botanised about Tangier. In 1785 he revisited Madeira, 

 and thence returned to England. Still untired, he obtained 

 permission at the close of the same year to revisit the Cape, and 

 landed there for the second time, Januar}' 21, 1786. The Dutch 

 Government were at that time jealous of tlie intrusion of 

 foreigners into the interior, and had been particularly annoyed 

 at the proceedings of the English traveller Paterson. IMasson, how- 

 over, had received strict injunctions not to travel and explore, and 

 on this account found the less difficulty in obtaiuiiig permission to 



(") The first 20 volumeg of this work contain 775 plates, nenrly one-third of 

 which represent Cape .''pecies. 



