Letter 1082

Preston has been busy working on his physic garden. He thanks Sloane for the Philosophical Transactions. Preston goes on to discuss a number of things: the progress of his trees’ growth, Archimedes’ contemporaries, trees from Norway and Sweden, and a storm that threw a whale onto the road near St Andrew’s. He includes an illustration of a flower: f. 223. Preston was a physician and botanist who established a lengthy correspondence with Sloane, exchanging plants, seeds, books and information. His main interest was in botany, and was well-known by his contemporaries for his botanical knowledge (Anita Guerrini, Preston, Charles (16601711), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/47084, accessed 1 June 2011]).