WM. WILSOlV'S tours in SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 



1827-1830. 



By Jas. Cash. 



(Read before the Manchester Cryptogamic Society^ April 16i!A, 1883.^ 



THE HIGHLANDS : 1827. 

 My communication this evening must necessarily be discursive. If I 

 trespass, as I may have to do, upon ground not strictly cryptogamic, 

 I shall ask you to forgive me for the sake of the individual who is the 

 subject of the sketch. This attempt to follow Mr. Wilson in his early 

 wanderings, in Scotland and Ireland, must be regarded rather as a 

 reminiscence than an historical record. The materials at my command 

 are unfortunately meagre. The memoranda left by Mr. Wilson of his 

 Scotch and Irish trips — 1827-1830 — are not sufficiently copious to 

 enable anyone to construct a complete and connected account of all 

 that he did ; nevertheless, the Journal he made at the time, and the 

 correspondence which I have been permitted to inspect, form together 

 a record sufficiently entertaining, in my judgment, to be worth 

 preservation. 



Mr. Wilson's first trip to Scotland was in the year 1827, and it was 

 made at the instigation of Dr. (afterwards Sir William) Hooker — then 

 Professor of Botany in the University of Glasgow — who saw in his 

 well-directed enthusiasm the foundation of a great botanical reputa- 

 tion. But for the encouragement he received from Dr. Hooker, Mr. 

 Wilson certainly would never have continued his studies with the 

 ardour and success that he did. 



Getting to Glasgow was not so easy in those days as it is now, when 

 we can leave Manchester at midnight, breakfast in Glasgow, and be 

 botanising at Killin before noon. Before railways shortened the 

 distance between us and the Highlands there were Lancashire 

 botanists courageous enough to do the journey on foot. Mr. Wilson, 

 however, was under no such necessity. On Saturday, the 16th June, 

 1827, he took a passage on board the steam-packet "William 

 Huskisson " (which sailed from Liverpool about four in the after- 

 noon), and landed at Greenock at half-past nine on the following 

 (Sunday) evening. On the Monday he continued his journey, by 

 boat, and reached Glasgow the same afternoon. After spending a day 

 with Professor Hooker, he joined an excursion partj^, which the 

 Professor had arranged, to Breadalbane, travelling by way of Dum. 

 N.S., Vol. ix. Oct. 1883. 



