Letter 1644

Thoresby asks whether the antiquities he sent have arrived. He requests that Sloane write a letter of recommendation for his nephew, Rayner, who would like to replace a surgeon that died on a plantation in Jamaica. Ralph Thoresby wrote “The Topography of Leedes” in 1715 and was interested in the topography of Yorkshire in general. He maintained a large collection of antiquities and other curiosities at his Musaeum Thoresbyanum in Leeds (P. E. Kell, Thoresby, Ralph (16581725), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/27334, accessed 25 May 2011]).