Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/557

 SLOANE. 553 contributed so largely to extend the knowledge of nature, while they laid the foundation of his own future fame and fortune. It i s , however, t o be remarked, that Dr. Sloane was the first man o f learning who had taken s o long a voyage for the sole purpose o f improving his favourite science; and that the botanists o f Europe were s o com pletely ignorant o f the productions o f America, that until his return from Jamaica, i t was a doubt with Ray himself, with which, t o use his own words, h e had long been tor mented, whether the new world presented any species o f plants i n common with the old; a doubt, which was removed b y Dr. Sloane, who furnished him with a cata logue o f the indigenous plants o f Jamaica, likewise natives o f England, which h e published i n his Synopsis. Add t o this, that Dr. Sloane was well acquainted with the disco veries o f the age, that h e had a n enthusiasm for his object, and was a t a n age when both activity o f body, and ardour o f mind concur t o vanquish difficulties; and i t will hardly appear strange, that h e returned home with eight hundred species o f plants, besides a proportionate number o f sub jects from the animal kingdom, o r that such a collection made i n s o short a time, was regarded with wonder and astonishment. He returned t o London i n May 1689; but i t was not till 1696, that h e published the Prodromus o f his History o f Jamaica plants, preparatory t o the publication o f his large work, o f which i t may b e considered a s the index, under the title o f “Catalogus Plantarum quae i n Insulā Jamaică sponte proveniunt,” arranged nearly according t o the method o f Ray. I n 1707, appeared the first volume o f his “Voyage t o Madeira, Barbadoes, Nevis, St. Christopher's, and Ja maica; with the Natural History o f the Herbs and Trees, four-footed Beasts, Fishes, Birds,” &c. &c. containing the first part o f the vegetable kingdom. The second volume, containing the remainder o f the vegetable and the animal kingdom, and making the whole number o f plates two hundred and seventy-four, was not published t i l l 1725. The