Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/38

xxxiv oughly searched. That they were not confined to natural history is evident. He was an assiduous promoter of the Association for the Exploration of Tropical Africa, and it was under his auspices that Mungo Park, Clapperton, and others were sent out. He was one of a committee to investigate the subject of lightning conductors. His letters to Josiah Wedgwood show his keen appreciation not only of the work of the great potter, but of his other ingenious contrivances; among the mass of papers left by him on his death was an illustrated dissertation on the history and art of the manufacture of porcelain by the Chinese. He took a deep interest in the coinage, and was in close communication with Matthew Boulton on questions of minting. On applying for information on this latter point to Dr. Roberts-Austen, that gentleman informed the editor that, though not officially an officer of the Mint, Banks had probably served on some departmental or Parliamentary commissions charged with mint questions; and further, that he had presented the mint with a really fine library, embracing all the books it possessed relating to numismatics and coinage questions generally, together with a valuable collection of coins. In reference to this, the editor has also found, on looking over some Banksian MS. in the British Museum, that these included a draft code of regulations for the conduct of the officers of the Mint.

His interest in manufactures was also constant; could his letters be brought together, a flood of light would thereby be thrown upon the progress of arts and sciences in Europe during his long tenure of the presidency of the Royal Society.

As an instance of his zeal for science may be mentioned the interest he took in Sir Charles Blagden's experiments to determine the power of human beings to exist in rooms heated to an excessive temperature. Sir Joseph Banks was one of the first who plunged into a chamber heated to the temperature of 260° Fahr., and was taken out nearly exhausted. It may be mentioned that Sir Francis Chantrey once remained two minutes in a furnace at a temperature of 320°.