Letter 0983

Dale is reviewing Ray’s ‘History of Insects’ manuscript. Many of the descriptions are ready for the press. He has yet to go through it all, but sends Sloane the heads and families of the entries. See: Sloane MS 4040 ff. 4-5. Samuel Dale was an apothecary, botanist, and physician who contributed several articles to the Philosophical Transactions. He was John Ray’s executor and good friend, and from Dale’s letters to Sloane we learn many details of Ray’s final moments (G. S. Boulger, Dale, Samuel (bap. 1659, d. 1739), rev. Juanita Burnby, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7016, accessed 5 July 2013]).