XXxiV BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 
oughly searched. That they were not confined to natural 
history is evident. He was an assiduous promoter of the 
Association for the Exploration of Tropical Africa, and it 
was under his auspices that Mungo Park, Clapperton, and 
others were sent out. He was one of a committee to 
investigate the subject of lightning conductors. His letters 
to Josiah Wedgwood show his keen appreciation not only 
of the work of the great potter, but of his other ingenious 
contrivances; among the mass of papers left by him on his 
death was an illustrated dissertation on the history and 
art of the manufacture of porcelain by the Chinese. He 
took a deep interest in the coinage, and was in close com- 
munication with Matthew Boulton on questions of minting. 
On applying for information on this latter point to Dr. 
Roberts-Austen, that gentleman informed the editor that, 
though not officially an officer of the Mint, Banks had 
probably served on some departmental or Parliamentary 
commissions charged with mint questions; and further, 
that he had presented the mint with a really fine library, 
embracing all the books it possessed relating to numismatics 
and coinage questions generally, together with a valuable 
collection of coins. In reference to this, the editor has also 
found, on looking over some Banksian MS. in the British 
Museum, that these included a draft code of regulations for 
the conduct of the officers of the Mint. 
His interest in manufactures was also constant; could 
his letters be brought together, a flood of light would thereby 
be thrown upon the progress of arts and sciences in Europe 
during his long tenure of the presidency of the Royal Society. 
As an instance of his zeal for science may be mentioned 
the interest he took in Sir Charles Blagden’s experiments to 
determine the power of human beings to exist in rooms 
heated to an excessive temperature. Sir Joseph Banks was 
one of the first who plunged into a chamber heated to the 
temperature of 260° Fahr., and was taken out nearly ex- 
hausted. It may be mentioned that Sir Francis Chantrey 
once remained two minutes in a furnace at a temperature of 
320°. 
