xl BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 
the project of a second voyage was mooted, as already 
mentioned on p. xxvii. How this idea was received by 
Linneus, the following extracts from his correspondence 
with Ellis will show :— 
I have just read, in some foreign newspapers, that our friend 
Solander intends to revisit those new countries, discovered by Mr. 
Banks and himself, in the ensuing spring. This report has affected 
me so much as almost entirely to deprive me of sleep. How vain 
are the hopes of man! Whilst the whole botanical world, like myself, 
has been looking for the most transcendent benefits to our science, 
from the unrivalled exertions of your countrymen, all their matchless 
and truly astonishing collection, such as has never been seen before, 
nor may ever be seen again, is to be put aside untouched, to be thrust 
into some corner, to become perhaps the prey of insects and of 
destruction. 
I have every day been figuring to myself the occupations of my 
pupil Solander, now putting his collection in order, having first 
arranged and numbered his plants, in parcels, according to the places 
where they were gathered, and then written upon each specimen its 
native country and appropriate number. I then fancied him throw- 
ing the whole into classes, putting aside and naming such as were 
already known; ranging others under known genera, with specific 
differences, and distinguishing by new names and definitions such as 
formed new genera, with their species. Thus, thought I, the world 
will be delighted and benefited by all these discoveries; and the 
foundations of true science will be strengthened, so as to endure 
through all generations ! 
I am under great apprehension that, if this collection should 
remain untouched till Solander’s return, it might share the same 
lot as Forskal’s Arabian specimens at Copenhagen. .. . Solander 
promised long ago, while detained off the coast of Brazil, in the early 
part of his voyage, that he would visit me after his return, of which 
T have been in expectation. If he had brought some of his specimens 
with him, I could at once have told him what were new; and we 
might have turned over some books together, and he might have been 
informed or satisfied upon many subjects, which after my death will 
not be so easily explained. 
I have no answer from him to the letter I enclosed to you, which 
I cannot but wonder at. You, yourself, know how much I have 
esteemed him, and how strongly I recommended him to you, 
By all that is great and good, I entreat you, who know so well the 
value of science, to do all that in you lies for the publication of these 
new acquisitions, that the learned world may not be deprived of 
them... . 
Again the plants of Solander and Banks recur to my imagination. 
