JOUENAL OF AN EXCURSION TO EASTBURY, ETC. 7 
Banksian documents in the Botanical Department of the 
British Museum and carried them off and offered them for 
sale." The original MS. of this Journal formed lot 176, and 
was bought by an autograph dealer for the paltry sum of 
£7 2s. 6d., who apparently sold it to J. Henniker Heaton, 
Esq., M.P., who disposed of it to a gentleman in Sydney, 
N.S.W. In consequence of its disappearance, Sir Joseph 
Hooker had to avail himself of a transcript which fortunately 
existed in the British Museum, or the contents might have 
been lost to science. 
The following additional facts in connection with the sale 
may interest the readers of these Proceedings, showing- 
how this invaluable Correspondence was literally thrown 
away, apart from the circumstance of the letters I am about 
to mention being of men connected with Gloucestershire. 
Lot 65, which contained ^' 28 Letters of (the Rev.) John 
Lightfoot to Banks on interesting subjects, 1773 to 1784," 
was bought by Cash " for the absurd sum of two shillings ! 
John Lightfoot, the author of the Flora Scotica, was born 
at Newent in Gloucestershire in 1735, went to Pembroke 
College, Oxford, and took orders. His taste for conchology 
and botany, and agreeable manners, recommended him to 
the Dnchess of Portland, whose Librarian and Chaplain he 
became. After her death in 1785 he drew up the Sale 
Catalogue of her celebrated Museum in one volume, 4to, 
which was dispersed by auction in 1786. He died at Ux- 
bridge, of which place he was Curate, in 1788. 
Lot 98, consisting of 31 interesting letters to Banks,— 
including two of Walter Honywood Yate of Bromesberrow 
Place, near Gloucester, which I fortunately afterwards se- 
cured, — was bought by a dealer for the absurd sum again of 
two shillings. One of these letters had accompanied the 
copy of the Catalogue of his Museum at Bromesberrow 
