Sir,
I have had the pleasure to receive your very kind Letter of 24th of
Sept[em]b[e]r, wherein you express the regard and esteem of a true friend. I have rec’d
more honour and encouragement from your good opinion of me, to pursue natural
history, than from the Royal Society of London, or any person else.
I am greatly obligd to you for supporting my character against that insolent Plagiary
Buttner, and thank you most kindly for your promise to write to Baron Munchhausen,
this will be of more service to me, than the certificates I have got from the Secretaries
to the Royal Society, that he did not give in any paper to the Society relating to
Corallines, or any of those marine bodies which he says he did; and it is well
known to all the Members of the R[oyal] Society, lovers of Natural History, that during
the time he was in England, nor at any other time whatever, did he[a] ever give in
any acc[oun]t whatsoever. Your friend Peter Collinson particularly knows this to be
true, and knows that he is a bad Man.
I have been confin’d this month to my Chamber by a violent Catarrh; but I hope, by
the advice of D[octo]r Fothergill, my good friend, to reestablish my health. I am now
looking into the Nature of Sponges, and think by dissecting and comparing them with
what I have seen recent, and with the Alcyonium Manus mortua, that I can
plainly see how they grow; without trusting to Peysonell’s acc[oun]t of them, which is
printed in our Philosophical Transactions, wherein he pretends to tell you, that he takes
the animal out of them, that forms them[b]; and that he put it[c] into them, and
it crept about through the meanders of the Sponge. This kind of Insect, which
harbours in Sponges, I have seen; but Sponges have no such animal to give them life,
and to form them. Their mouths are open tubes all over their surfaces, not furnishd,
like the tubes of the Alcyonium Manus mortua, with polype-like mouths or
suckers. With their mouths they draw in and send out the water; they can contract and
dilate them at will, and the Count Marsigli has (though he thought them plants)
confirm’d me in my opinion, that this is their manner of feeding. If you observe what he
has wrote on Sponges in his Histoire de la Mer, and the Observations he has made on
the Systole and Diastole of these holes in Sponges, during the time they are full of
water, you will be of my opinion. Take a lobe of the Officinal Sponge, and cut it through
perpendicularly and horizontally, and you’ll observe how near the disposition of the
tubes are to the figure I have given of the sections of the Alcyonium Manus
mortua in my plate of the Sea pens.
I am collecting all those zoophytes you call Corallinae. I have met with
several Species & Varieties from the Bahama Islands. It is to shew D[octo]r Job Baster
that he does not know the difference between a Coralline and a Conferva, when he
says, he can prove, that all which you call Corallines are no more than Confervas.
D[octo]r Walker of Edinburgh is now here. He tells me he has collected a great
variety, in his voyage round the sea Coast of Scotland, of all the submarine
productions. I believe he has a view to writing a Natural History of Scotland, the
people of that part of this island, seem fonder of it than the English.
I wrote a week ago to M[iste]r Lee about the letters you sent him, and likewise
beg’d of him to send you the Sanguinaria.
Our Friend Adam Kuhn is now at M[iste]r Pitcairn’s, a Merchant’s in Edinburgh,
Scotland; I do not doubt but he will promote the study of Natural History there.
By a Swedish ship lately saild to Stockholm, you will receive a bottle with a
Larva of the Lacerta Inguana, and D[octo]r Garden’s acc[oun]t of it.
The Doctor wants much to know your opinion of a specimen of a shrub, which was
sent to you about the same time with[d] the Specimens of the Fish, in the year
1760, at the latter end of the descriptions of his Fishes, he describes the plant.
D[octo]r Solander & I both saw the Specimen, and I have by me now a good drawing
of it and some seeds – it is decandria mongynia; to give you some idea of it, I
shall copy his friends drawing [illustrations]. The seed is a nut. The flowers are
white, and grow in spikes like the Ribes, the leaves of the Plant are like the
Styrax.
I should be glad to know if you continue in the same mind about disposing of your
Tea Tree, and what I shall call the value, that you put upon it. I do not doubt but that
there are many persons here who would be glad to purchase it, if they knew the price.
Pray is the plant of the true Ipecacuana yet known? If it is, I should be glad to know
what it is.
Lord Hillsborough rec’d last summer from Madeira, seeds of the Dragon Palm, and
they are as they are describd, about the size of a pea, quite round, and horny, like the
seeds of the Palmetto from S[outh] Carolina. I shall write for some specimens of the
flowers. I am not of M[iste]r Loeflings opinion that they belong to the
Asparagus.
My best wishes attend you, and when you have leisure to write, nothing can be
more agreeable than your elegant and instructive Letters.
I am, D[ea]r Sir, with the sincere regard,
Your most affectionate
humble Servant.
John Ellis.
I have told D[octo]r Solander what you desired; he presents his
compliments to you.
London Oct[o]b[e]r 29. 1765.
[Address]
Post paid
To
The Right Honorable
Sir Charles Von
Linné
at Upsal
in Sweden
frijbr.
No Specimens of Plants from D[octo]r Garden.[e]
TEXTUAL NOTES
a. MS 1 he [added above the line]
b. MS 1 them [added above the line]
c. MS 1 it [added above the line]
d. MS 1 with
e. MS. 1 No ... Garden [added in the Margin]