Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v1.djvu/221

 of Philadelphia, Botanist to His Majesty for the Floridas; but to the volume of Travels by his son, William Bartram. Yet it is difficult to mention the son without reference to the father, whom Linnæus called the greatest self-taught botanist in the world. John Bartram, born in 1699, when almost seventy years old explored the St. John's River in Florida, accompanied by William, who in turn made a second journey to the region in I773, "at the request of Dr. Fothergill, of London," the English naturalist being zealous “for the discovery of rare and useful productions. . . chiefly in. the vegetable kingdom." Both father and son corresponded with European scientists, including Gronov and Dillen, but more particularly with Peter Collinson, through whom the elder Bartram came into relations with virtually all the distinguished naturalists of his time. The botanic garden for which the father began to collect in 1730, and which is now within the limits of Philadelphia, was justly famous. Here, it is said, Washington and Franklin were wont to sit and talk just prior to the Revolution; and Bartram's Garden is still an object of interest as the first establishment of its kind on this continent. From a local guide is extracted this description of its founder:

He was one of an early incorporated company to bank the Schuylkill and the Delaware, by which means he rescued, out of extensive swamps, arable land, and pasture for many cattle and horses; his crops of wheat challenge the farmer of to-day; he fertilized his orchard in an ingenious way that was a "miracle in husbandry." Besides, he was stone-mason; his interesting old house he built with his own hands, quarrying the stone on his estate in a remarkable manner; see, also, in the Garden the watering-trough and the cider-press, cut out of solid rock. And his record is fuller yet; he had to study Latin for his botany; he was enough acquainted with medicine and surgery to be of great help to his poorer neighbors; he delineated a plan for deep-sea soundings more than a hundred years before the Challenger expedition. His thirst for knowledge was insatiable. His joy in the revelations of nature was unbounded. What wonder that he was astonished when people complained that they were tired of time!

His son William, called by the Seminoles "Puc-Puggy" (Flower-Hunter), was born at Kingsessing, Pennsylvania, 1739,