Letter 0498

Ray thanks Sloane for sending him plant specimens and Tournefort’s book. He explains that his Supplement was ready to go to press and is already in Mr. Smith’s hands. He apologizes for failing to instruct Smith to not show it to anyone, having forgot there are ‘ill natured’ folk who do not wish Sloane well and might use the transcript to capitalize on his work. He has since instructed Smith to only show the Supplement to Dr. Robinson. Ray was a theologian and naturalist who collected and catalogued his botanical findings in the much lauded Historia plantarum (1686, 1688) (Scott Mandelbrote, Ray , John (16271705), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2005 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23203, accessed 18 June 2013]).