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MEMORIALS OF RAY : 



solicited by Dean Wilkins to translate his " Real Charac- 

 ter"* into Latin, he consented to do it ; and indeed he was 

 one of the fittest men living to undertake it, on the account 

 of his being a complete master of that language, as well 

 as excellent in that kind of learning. This work he 

 laboured at for a good while ; and although very heavy, 

 he accomplished it, as I find by the original manuscript, 

 which is now in the library of the Royal Society, ready 

 for the press, if any Maecenas should have a mind to let 

 it see the light. 



Having spent the latter end of this year, and the be- 

 ginning of 1668, with his friends Mr. Burrel and Mr. 

 Courthope, at Danny in Sussex, and Sir Robert Barnham, 

 at Bocton in Kent, (all three his pupils at Trinity,) and 

 Mr. Willughby in Warwickshire ; he then, in July fol- 

 lowing, began another journey alone by himself (his 

 friend Mr. Willughby being then newly married) into 

 Yorkshire and Westmoreland, where he described many 

 plants, fowls, &c., and then returned in September to 

 Middleton Hall, where he spent most of the following 

 - winter with his friend Mr. Willughby. 



In the following spring, those two great virtuosos 

 entered upon those experiments about the tapping of 

 trees, and the ascent and descent of their sap; which are 

 published in the ' Philosophical Transactions,' and may 

 be met with together in Mr. Lowthorp's Abridgement, 

 (vol. ii, p. 682, &c.) Among Mr. Ray's observations, I 

 find some deserving notice, not published with the rest, 

 viz., " that the sap of any tree, running down the side of 

 the tree, or dropping long on one place, will precipitate 

 a kind of white coagulum or jelly, which may be well 

 conceived to be the part which, every year, between bark 

 and tree, turns to wood, and of which the leaves and 

 fruit are made. And it seems to precipitate more when 



* In this work (see notice of Willcins, page 18,) Bishop Wilkins was 

 much assisted by both Willughby and Ray. It does not appear that Ray's 

 translation ever saw the light, nor have I been able to find the MS. either in 

 tlic library of the Royal Society or the British Museum. 



