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218 218 JOURNAL AND LETTERS OF DAVID DOUGLAS. conveniences that daily occur, I have great reason to con- sider myself a highly favoured individual. All that my feeble exertions may have effected, only stimulate me to fresh exertions. The whole of my botanical collections, with the exception of some few, were, agreeably with my anxious wishes, given for publication in the forthcoming North American Flora of Dr. Hooker. I sailed from Hudson's Bay on the 15th of September, and arrived at Portsmouth on the llth of the following month. D. DOUGLAS. EDITORIAL COMMENT BY SIR WM. J. HOOKER. Thus happily terminated Mr. Douglas' first adventurous journey in North America, a journey extending from the Pacific to the source of the Columbia River, and thence to the Atlantic Ocean. Among the many dangers to which he was exposed, was that one recorded by Mr. Drum m on d (who, with Capt. Back [Black ?] and Lieu't Kendal, was of the party), in the first volume of the ''Botanical Miscel- lany" (p. 216); when in a small open boat in Hudson's Bay, they encountered so dreadful a storm, and were so short of provisions, that their escape seemed little short of a miracle. Mr. Douglas in particular suffered severely, and was confined to his bed during the greater part of the voyage home. It was fortunate that he directed his scien- tific researches chiefly to the western side of the Rocky Mountains ; for, during the very time he was carrying on his investigations there, his countrymen, Dr. Richardson and Mr. Drummond, were exploring the territories to the eastward of that vast stretch of the Cordillera : the former chiefly in the Arctic regions, the latter in nearly the same parallels of latitude with Mr. Douglas ; and the result of their combined exertions has been a mass of collections that have thrown a new light on the Natural History of