JOHN MITCHELL 35 



Mitchell himself, writing to Linnaeus from 

 London, 1748, tells him: " I should have been 

 happy to send you a few plants if they had not 

 been so much damaged by pirates as well as in- 

 jured by their sea voyage, so that, among more 

 than a thousand specimens, I have scarcely a per- 

 fect flower. 



" The descriptions I drew up, of new genera of 

 plants, have been sent by Mr. CoUinson to per- 

 sons in various parts of Europe, so that I scarcely 

 know now where to get a copy. 



"Mr. Trew, to whom Mr. Collinson sent a few 

 papers of mine, informs us that they have ap- 

 peared in the last volume of the Nuremberg 

 Transactions. They consist of a dissertation on 

 a new botanical principle derived from the sex- 

 ual theory, which, I think, accords with your 

 ideas, and, if I mistake not, our systems support 

 each other." 



On the 17th and 24th of November, 1748, he 

 read a paper before the Royal Society on The 

 Preparation and Use of Various Kinds of Pot- 

 Ash (Phil. Trans., xlv). The learned gentlemen 

 of the Society were quick to recognize the merits 

 of their returned countryman and made him a 

 fellow on December 15 of that same year. He 

 would, doubtless, spend a good deal of his time 

 in the Botanical Garden at Kew, indeed, would 

 seem to have lodged nearby, for he dates a paper 



