Letter 2883

Richardson thanks Sloane for lending him a book, but is ‘concerned that I should mislay the grass which I thought I had sent you’. He received ‘a printed letter’ on the ‘petrifyed melons of mount Carmel’ and stone specimens commonly found in English quarries. Richardson saw ‘a red stone filled wth Britsol Diamons’. Smallpox proved fatal for several children in his community. He describes the nature of the pustules formed on their skin, which seemed different from regular smallpox pustules. Richardson was a physician and botanist who traveled widely in England, Wales, and Scotland in search of rare specimens. He corresponded and exchanged plants with many well-known botanists and naturalists (W. P. Courtney, Richardson, Richard (16631741), rev. Peter Davis, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2010 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23576, accessed 31 May 2011]).