472 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Here, however, he devoted most of his time to the study of natural 
history, making a fine collection of the birds and insects of Nor- 
folk. Having discovered a new and curious British moss, the 
Buxhaumia apliylla, he took it to Sir James Edward Smith, and 
was encouraged by that eminent botanist to pursue the study which 
he had so successfully begun. In 1806, when he came into pos- 
session of his fortune, he made extensive botanical tours in the 
remotest parts of Scotland in company with Dawson Turner, Esq., 
whose eldest daughter he married in 1815. By the advice of Sir 
Joseph Banks, with whom he became acquainted during his resi- 
dence in London, he visited Iceland in 1809, and made large col- 
lections there in every department of natural history. The ship, 
however, in which he returned was burned at sea, and he himself 
miraculously escaped by the help of another vessel, with the loss 
of all his manuscripts, drawings, and specimens. His account of 
this journey, drawn up from memory, was published in 1811 under 
the title of “ Eecollections of Iceland,” the first of a series of 
works which raised him to a high place in the scientific world. 
In 1810-11 he made great preparations to accompany Sir Eobert 
Brownrigg, who was going out as governor to Ceylon, hut the 
sanguinary disturbances which took place in that island prevented 
him from visiting it. 
In 1814 he made a botanical tour of nine months in France, 
Switzerland, and the North of Italy, and thus became acquainted 
with many of the most distinguished botanists in Europe. In 1812 
he began his first botanical work, on the British Jungermanniae, 
which was completed in 1816. This work was followed by his 
Muscologia Britannica and his Musci Exotici, the first of which 
was published in conjunction with Dr Taylor in 1817. 
While engaged in these and other works, he found it necessary to 
look out for some permanent employment. He had sold his landed’ 
property in 1811, and vested the proceeds in different securities, 
which had so rapidly deteriorated, that in 1820, on the advice of 
Sir Joseph Banks, he accepted of the vacant Professorship of 
Botany in the University of Grlasgow, which was then worth little 
more than L.lOO a year, but which afterwards rose to upwards 
of L.800. 
During the twenty years he resided in Glasgow he published his 
