My respect to Mistress Colden, the Misses, and young Master Colden: I have the honor to be, dear sir, your most humble and obedient servant, PETER KALM.

DR. COLDEN TO KALM.

SIR-I have the favor of yours of the 4th of last month; but that which you mention to have wrote preceding never came to my hands; so that, till I received your last, I did not know whether you had left America last fall, as you proposed, or not. This made me lately write to Mr. Franklin, to know the certainty of it. I heartily wish you a happy voyage home, and that at your return you may receive those rewards which your labors richly deserve. In answer to the questions you put to me, I shall inform you, as far as my knowledge allows me to go, and in such manner as I judge best suits the view of your queries.

As to what you desire to know of myself, though the account would come more properly from another, yet I shall briefly tell you the principal turns of my life. My father was a minister of the church of Scotland, and the oldest minister in it, before he died. He was much esteemed for his piety and strict morals, and had a considerable interest with many of the nobility. I was educated at the University of Edinburgh. My father's view in my education was for the church, as by his interest I could have no doubt of preferment in it. But after I had gone through the usual studies at the University, my inclinations were averse to entering into orders in the church, and I applied myself to the study of physic. I learned the rudiments of botany under Dr. Preston, whose name you'll find in Ray's Methodus. I went through a course of anatomy with Dr. Ariskine [Erskine ?], and of chemistry with Mr. Wilson; both of them distinguished in their professions at London. The salaries of the ministers in the church of Scotland are very small; and the expense of my education had so far exhausted my father's pocket, that I found it was not in my power to make which it is necessary for a young physician to do in Great Britain, on his first appearing in the world. My mother had a sister in Philadelphia, a widow who had acquired some estate and had no children, and this induced me to try my fortune in America. I arrived at Philadelphia in the year 1710. Upon my arrival I became very in

quisitive into the American plants; but they were then so little known, and I had so little assistance from my books, that I was soon discouraged. In the year 1715, I returned to Great Britain. I had conversation with Dr. Halley, and other men of learning at London in the mathematics, for my taste chiefly inclined me to that study. I went to Scotland, and married my present wife, and the year following returned to Philadelphia. I fixed [myself] there, with a view to practice physic; but in the year 1718, I had the curiosity to visit New York, without the least thought of changing my place of residence. I visited the then Governor of the place, General Hunter, as it is usual for strangers to do, though I had no manner of acquaintance with him. He received me more kindly than I expected, and though I staid but three days in the place, I was invited by him to particular conversations. General Hunter had served in the army from the time of the Revolution in Great Britain, under King William and the Duke of Marlborough, to the year 1709, when he was made Governor of New York. He had not only distinguished himself in the field, but likewise in the court, among the polite and men of learning. In about a fortnight's time after I had returned to Philadelphia, I very unexpectedly received a letter from Gov. Hunter, with an invitation to come to New York with my family, accompanied with the offer of an office of profit; which I accepted, and soon after removed to New York. Gov. Hunter continued in his government only two years after my removal; but I had the good fortune to be in favor with all his successors, one only excepted. In the year 1722, I was appointed one of the King's Council for the province of New York. The business of my office of Surveyor General of lands obliged me to be much in the country, and my intimacy with the governors occasioning a greater expense than suited my circumstances and tastes, accompanied with no small share of envy, I removed my family, about the year 1739, to the country. After which time I indulged my humor in philosophical amusements more than I could do while in town. It was some years after

this, that I accidentally met with Dr. Linnæus's Genera Plantarum. I was so much taken with the accuracy of his characters, that I resolved to examine them with the plants that grow near my house; and this is the sole occasion of what you have seen

from me in Botany, and which is so inconsiderable that I can have no pretensions to any merit in the science.*

As to your other queries I can give you but little satisfaction. You know a great deal more than I do of the quadrupeds in America. I never heard, nor did I imagine that we had so many species of Foxes in America as you mention. It is very unhappy that our climate is so fitted to the fox constitution. I know of neither Hare nor Rabbit in this country; what we have is a middle species between the two. I have heard of a white Squir rel. Panthers are so rare that we hear of one only in a dozen years. I have seen two species of the Mustela; one, Mustela fulvo-nigricans inferiore parte capitis, gulæ, abdominis, et interiori femorum alba; 2. Mustela tota candidissima excepto cauda apice atro. This last is the only beast of the ravenous kind that I have a value for; because one or two of them delivered my house and barn from rats, when I was like to be devoured by them. *** It is a most beautiful white and soft fur, so that I do not doubt of its being the true ermine.

I never saw an Opossum, nor heard of any in this province. I never heard of more than one kind of Wolf, and I suppose that you know the Indian Dog is much shaped like a Wolf. I never saw any Porcupine but in the Mohawks country, nor have I ever heard of any in this part of the country. I know only one sort of Rat; none of the Rat-kind I believe are properly natives of America, but have been all originally imported. I have often heard of the Moose-deer. One, I think, since I came to the country was catched near Albany, but I can give you no description of it. I have heard that it is as large as an ox, and has a mane like a horse. Any country boy you meet with can inform you more of fishes than I can.

As to the reason of the children of the people from Europe (not the native Indians) losing their teeth so commonly, I attribute it entirely to the scurvy, of which scarce one family is free. *** I have heard that the Indians eat the roots of one kind of Nymphæa; but I did not suspect it to be the Colocassia, because Linnæus ranks that with the Arum. Please to distinguish the species, and tell me the reason you think it the Colocassia

* The reader will find another brief autobiography of Dr. Colden, in his letter to Peter Collinson, dated May, 1742.—A. G.

Egyptiacum. It will give me the greatest pleasure to hear of your safe arrival at home, and that you have published the fruits of your labors in America. Mr. Franklin, at Philadelphia, will take care of any letters for me, or Mr. Collinson in London.

The Colden papers comprise three letters from Linnæus. The earliest is dated at Upsal, on the 6th of August, 1747, and was sent by a clergyman by the name of Sandin, who came to Pennsylvania. It contains a few remarks upon the manuscript Planta Coldenhamiæ, then in his possession, and a request that he would send dried plants and seeds. The second, without particular date, was written in the same year, and brought by Kalm, and contains many notes and queries respecting the plants of Colden's manuscript. To these, Dr. Colden replied at length in his letter of February 9th, 1748–9 (O. S.), and in another entrusted to Kalm a year after; which having both been published in full by Smith, in his Correspondence of Linnæus, need not be reproduced here. The first is chiefly occupied with Colden's views respecting the nature of genera, &c., which are substantially the same with those given in his letters to Gronovius. Linnæus briefly alludes to this subject in the following epistle.

Viro Illustri CONVALLAD. COLDEN s. pl. d. CAR. LINNEUS.

Literas tuas vir illustris, 1748-9, Febr. 9 datas, accepi, et summa animi voluptate perlegi, utpote datas a Fautore longe remoto et curiosissimo. Sententiam quam fores de generatione plantarum ad instructionem generum, eadem est quam proposuit D. Mitchel in Actis Naturæ Curiosorum; statuis plantas ejusdem generis esse, quæ possunt genitura sese miscere; at ego has varietates dico, nec distincta genera. Sint exempli gratia Ranunculi species diversæ, quas nullus negabit genere convenire, attamen hæ nulla ratione possunt sese miscere aut una alteram fæcundare; sed Tulipa [quædam] et Brassicæ, quæ tantum sunt varietates, miscentur facillime.

Dubia et obscura in re herbaria circa terminos et leges varias systematis explicavi in Philosophia Botanica, quæ etiamnum sudat, quam cum etiamnum e prelo non prodiit, doleo me hac vice ad te, vir illustris, mittere non posse. Habebis in eo libello omnia dubia enodata, quam primum prodeat.

Mitto Acta Upsaliensia pro anno 1743, ut videas primam partem Descriptionum Tuarum: altera pars imprimitur in anno 1744, quæ nondum a prelo exiit. Si habes plura mittas quæso, omnia candide actis inseram; utinam velles tum aliquot plantas siccas simul mittere et semina: occasio quotannis datur per theologos nostrates. Si quidquam sit quod in nostris terris desideras, parata tibi sunt omnia quæ a me expetas.

Multæ sunt inter tuas plantas rarissimæ, antea non descriptæ, nobis nec vivæ, nec siccæ visæ; utinam liceret has possidere in herbario nostro. Tu valeas et diu vivas. Has exorare debui ut testarem officia et observantiam meam Mecanatem in Floræ.

Dabam Upsaliæ, 1750, d. 10 Augusti.

Dr. Colden's correspondence with Peter Collinson commenced in the year 1740, and was continued without interruption during the life of that amiable and excellent man. Collinson's last letter is dated July 2d, 1768: he died on the 11th of August following, in the 75th year of his age. The selections I have ventured to make from this voluminous correspondence, form an appropriate supplement to Smith's very interesting collection of the letters of Collinson to Linnæus.

MR. COLLINSON TO DR. COLDEN.

London, March 7th, 1741. DEAR FRIEND-You have much obliged me by yours of the 22d June, and I am glad to find my little offices were acceptable to you.

I communicated your letter and project* to Mr. Grayham, whose answer I enclose; he has also been so good as to get Mr. Sisson's proposal to make an instrument that will be suitable for your purpose.

I also lent Mr. Grayham your History of the five Indian Nations: he was mightily pleased with it, and hoped you would oblige the world with the second part; for that he had not read any that had gave him that satisfaction and information that yours did, because he was persuaded he could depend on your veracity. You really delight me in hopes of seeing the second part; but pray take your time and do it at your leisure.

* Relative to an improvement in the quadrant, which Dr. Colden had suggested.-A. G.