Page:London Journal of Botany, Volume 2 (1843).djvu/111

 numerous sketches after the celebrated flower-pieces of Van Huysum, merely for his own improvement mechanical in the part of the art; it is easy to perceive how he attained such inimitable truth in his performances, for he sought not to idealize nature, but to seize the ideal features of nature. And we think we may venture to point to the Salvia pomifera, Morina Persica, and Saccharum Ravennæ, as patterns of botanical iconography, which, though executed long ago, in an early part of the work, remain unsurpassed to the present day.

But even before the Flora Græca was published, so early as year 1801, we find the merits of our friend fully acknowleged, and himself appointed Natural History Draughtsman to the expedition to Terra Australis, commanded by Captain Flinders, of "H. M. S. Investigator." I am enabled, from letters in my possession, to state what were the liberal terms granted to Bauer. His salary was £300 a year, with rations for himself and servant. The E. I. Company having contributed £1200 towards the expenses of this expedition, the share which Bauer received, enabled him to make his outfit as an artist, very complete. It was farther granted, by the Lords of the Admiralty, that all drawings executed, which were not required for publication in any work connected with the expedition, should be the artist's own property, as well as the specimens collected by him, except those that should go to the British Museum. It is not, for a moment, my intention to follow our enterprising traveller through the different stages of this famous expedition, recorded as its events are by the ablest pens, and well known to all our readers who feel an interest in such subjects; but from Bauer's own letters I glean the following particulars.

During his excursions from False Bay to Table Mountain, and those at King George's Sound, until the first arrival of the "Investigator" at Port Jackson, Bauer had completed, up to the 22d. of May, 1802, 350 sketches of plants, and 100 of animals, &c. On quitting the latter place for Torres' Straits, he writes on the 20th of July that his collection then comprized seven hundred drawings, which he had left for safety