Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/30

xxvi amount of material, the botanical part of which was for the most part already described, and needed but little to prepare it for the press. The descriptive tickets, which had been drawn up by Solander, were arranged in systematic order in what are still known as "Solander cases," and transcribed fairly by an amanuensis for publication. About 700 plates were engraved on copper in folio at Banks's expense, and a few prints or proofs were taken, but they were never published. Five folio books of neat manuscript, and the coppers, rest in the hands of the trustees of the British Museum. The question arises, why were they never utilised? The descriptions were ready long before Solander's death, although the plants collected in Australia do not seem to have been added to the fair copies, and the plates were mainly outlines. This has always been regarded as an insoluble problem, but the following extracts from a letter written by Banks very shortly before Solander died, may be accepted as evidence of his intention to publish. The letter from which the extract is taken is undated, and takes the shape of a draft without any name, but it is a reply to a letter addressed to Banks by Hasted, who was then collecting materials for the second edition of his history of the county of Kent.

Hasted's letter, to which this is an answer, was dated 25th February 1782, little more than two months before Solander's death (alluded to on a subsequent page), an event which has generally been accepted as determining the fate of the intended publication.

But we must now go back a few years. In 1772 preparations were made for a second expedition under Cook in