DEAR SIR, Philadelphia, August 23, 1750. WE received your favour of the 16th instant. Mr. Peters will hardly have time to write to you per this post, and I must be short. Mr. Francis spent the last evening with me, and we were all glad to hear that you seriously meditate a visit after the middle of next month, and that you will inform us by a line when to expect you. We drank your health and Mrs. Johnson's, remembering your kind entertainment of us at Stratford. I think with you, that nothing is of more importance for the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the strength of a state: much more so than riches or arms, which, under the management of Ignorance and Wickedness, often draw on destruction, instead of providing for the safety of a people. And though the culture bestowed on many should be successful only with a few, yet the influence of those few and the service in their power, may be very great. Even a single woman that was wise, by her wisdom saved a city. I think also, that general virtue is more probably to be expected and obtained from the education of youth, than from the exhortation of adult persons; bad habits and vices of the mind, being, like diseases of the body, more easily prevented than cured. I think moreover, that talents for the education of youth are the gift of God; and that he on whom they are bestowed, whenever a way is opened for the use of them, is as strongly called as if he heard a voice from heaven: nothing more surely pointing out duty in a public service, than ability and opportunity of performing it. I have not yet discoursed with Dr. Jenney concerning your removal hither. You have reason, I own, to doubt, whether your coming on the foot I proposed would not be disagreeable to him; though I think it ought not for should his particular interest be somewhat affected by it, that ought not to stand in competition with the general good; especially as it cannot be much affected, he being old, and rich, and without children. I will however learn his sentiments before the next post. But whatever influence they might have on your determinations about removing, they need have none on your intention of visiting; and if you favour us with the visit, it is not necessary that you should previously write to him to learn his dispositions about your removal; since you will see him, and when we are all together, those things may be better settled in conversation than by letters at a distance. Your tenderness of the church's peace is truly laudable; but, methinks, to build a new church in a growing place is not properly dividing but multiplying; and will really be a means of increasing the number of those who worship God in that way. Many who cannot now be accommodated in the church, go to other places, or stay at home; and if we had another church, many who go to other places, or stay at home, would go to church. I suppose the interest of the church has been far from suffering in Boston by the building of two churches there in my memory. I had for several years nailed against the wall of my house a pigeon box that would hold six pair; and though they bred as fast as my neighbours' pigeons, I never had more than six pair, the old and strong driving out the young and weak, and obliging them to seek new habitations. At length I put up an additional box with apartments for entertaining twelve pair more; and it was soon filled with inhabitants, by the overflowing of my first box, and of others in the neighbourhood. This I take to be a parallel case with the building a new church here. Your years I think are not so many as to be an objection of any weight, especially considering the vigour of your constitution. For the small-pox, if it should spread here, you might inoculate with great probability of safety; and I think that distemper generally more favourable here than farther northward. Your objection about the politeness of Philadelphia, and your imagined rusticity, is mere compliment; and your diffidence of yourself absolutely groundless. My humble respects, if you please, to your brethren at the commencement. I hope they will advise you to what is most for the good of the whole, and then I think they will advise you to remove hither. Please to tender my best respects and service to Mrs. Johnson and your son. I am, dear Sir, Your obliged and affectionate humble servant, NATURAL HISTORY. Ar a meeting of the Wernerian Natural History Society, on Saturday the 19th of November, 1808, Mr. P. Neill read some observations on the great Sea Snake of the Northern Ocean. He enumerated and read extracts from the different authors who had mentioned it, Rannus, Egede, and Pontoppidan. He remarked that it was placed by the latter author between the mermaid and the krakén, in a chapter which treats on sea-monsters; and that, standing in such suspicious company, it had been rejected by naturalists in general as a fabulous creature. He stated, however, that within a few weeks, a vast marine animal, shaped like a snake, and not described in the works of systematic naturalists, had been cast ashore in Orkney. This curious animal, it appears, was stranded in Rothesholm bay, in the island of Stronsa. Malcolm Laing, Esq. M. P. being in Orkney at the time, communicated the circumstance to his brother Gilbert Laing, Esq. Advocate, Edinburgh, on whose property the animal had been stranded. Through this authentic channel Mr. Neill received his information. The creature was dead when it came on shore, and the tail seemed to have been injured and broken by dashing among the rocks. The body measured fifty-five feet in length, and the circumference of the thickest part was equal to the girth of an Orkney poney. The head was not larger than that of a seal, and was furnished with two blowholes. From the back a number of filaments resembling in texture the substance called Indian sea-grass, hung down like a mane. On each side of the body were three large fins, shaped like paws, and jointed. Before measures could be taken for securing this rare animal for the inspection of naturalists, a violent tempest unfortunately occurred, and beat the carcass to pieces. Some fragments, however, have been collected by Mr. Malcolm Laing, and are to be deposited in the museum of the University of Edinburgh. Mr. Neill concluded with remarking that no doubt could be entertained that-this was the kind of animal which had served as the prototype of all the wonderful seasnakes, whose appearance is on record; and that although the unfor-. tunate destruction of the specimen by the storm may probably render it impossible to form a correct generic character on Linnean principles, yet a place (if it should be an appendix) could no longer be refused to the Serpens Marinus Magnus of the Bishop of Bergen. An Attempt to ascertain the time when the Potato (Solanum tuberosum) was first introduced into the United Kingdom. By the Right Hon. Sir JOSEPH BANKS, Bart. K. B. PR. S. &c. THE notes on the introduction of the potato, which it is hoped will not be found uninteresting, were chiefly collected by my worthy and learned friend Mr. Dryander, some of them from authorities not easily accessible. Could we trace the origin of any one of our cultivated plants, it may, and probably will, lead to the discovery of others. The potato now is use (Solanum turberosum) was brought to England by the colonists sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh, under the authority of his patent, granted by Queen Elizabeth, "for discovering and planting new countries, not possessed by christians," which passed the great seal in 1584. Some of Sir Walter's ships sailed in the same year; others, on board one of which was Thomas Herriot, afterwards known as a mathematician, in 1585; the whole however returned, and probably brought with them the potato, on the 27th July, 1586. This Mr. Thomas Herriot, who was probably sent out to examine the country, and report to his employers the nature and produce of its soil, wrote an account of it, which is printed in De Bry's collection of Voyages, Vol. I. In this plant called opena Count, under the article of roots, p. 17, he describes 66 These roots," says he, "are round, some as large as a walnut, others much larger: they grow in damp soil, many hanging to. gether, as if fixed on ropes; they are good food, either boiled or roasted." Gerard, in his Herbal, published 1597, gives a figure of the potato, under the name of potato of Virginia; and tells us that he received the roots from Virginia, otherwise called Norembega. The manuscript minutes of the Royal Society, December 13, 1693, tell us, that Sir Robert Southwell then president, informed the fellows, at a meeting, that his grandfather brought potatoes into Ireland, who first had them from Sir Walter Raleigh. This evidence proves, not unsatisfactorily, that the potato was first brought into England, either in the year 1586, or very soon after, and sent thence to Ireland, without delay by Sir Robert Southwell's ancestor, where it was cherished and cultivated for food before the good people of England knew its value; for Gerard, who had this plant in his garden in 1597, recommends the roots to be eaten as a delicate dish, not as common food. It appears, however, that it first came into Europe, at an earlier period, and by a different channel; for Clusius, who at that time resided at Vienna, first received the potato in 1598, from the governor of Mons, in Hainault, who had procured it the year before from one of the attendants of the pope's legate, under the name of taratoufli; and learned from him, that in Italy, where it was then in use, no one certainly knew whether it originally came from Spain, or from America. Peter Cieca, in his Chronicle, printed in 1553, tells us, chap. xl, p. 49, that the inhabitants of Quito, and its vicinity, have, beside maize, a tuberous root, which they eat, and call papas. This Clusius guesses to be the plant he received from Flanders; and this conjecture has been confirmed by the accounts of travellers, who have since that period visited the country. From these details we may fairly infer, that potatoes were first brought into Europe from the mountainous parts of South America, in the neighbour hood of Quito; and, as the Spaniards were the sole possessors of that country, there is little doubt of their having been first carried into Spain, but as it would take some time to introduce them into use in that country, and afterward to make the Italians so well acquainted with them as to give them a name, there is every reason to believe they had been several years in Europe, before they were sent to Clusius. The name of the root, in South America, is papas, and in Virginia, it was called openawk; the name of potato was therefore evidently applied to it on account of its similarity in appearance to the battata, or sweet potato; and our potato appears to have been distinguished from that root, by the ap pellative of potato of Virginia, till the year 1640, if not longer f. Some authors have asserted, that potatoes were first discovered by Sir Francis Drake, in the South Seas; and others, that they were introduced into England, by Sir John Hawkins ; but in both instances the plant alluded to is clearly the sweet potato, which was used in England as a delicacy, long before the introduction of our potatoes; it was imported in considerable quantities from Spain, and the Canaries, and was supposed to possess the power of restoring decayed vigour. The kissing comfits of Falstaff, and other confections of similar imaginary qualities, with which our ancestors were duped, were principally made of these, and of eringo roots. The potatoes themselves were sold by itinerant dealers, chiefly in the neighbourhood of the Royal Exchange, and purchased when scarce at no inconsiderable cost, by those who had faith in their alleged properties. The allusions to this opinion are very frequent in the plays of that age. THE NATURALIST No. III.—FOR THE PORT FOLIO. THE inhabitants of the United States, like the joint heirs of an im mense, undescribed property, are not yet acquainted with half the value of their inheritance; the incalculable riches of their country. Its mineral treasures are but little known; its botanical ones are far from • Taratoufli signifies also truffles. † Gerard's Herbal, by Johnson, p. 729. "Let it rain potatoes, and hail kissing comfits." Merry Wives of Windsor, Act v, Scene 5. Parkinson's Paradisus Terrestris, p. 518. Gerard's Herbal, 1697, p. 780. |