Letter 1412

Dale intends to return the books he borrowed and will send plant specimens at the same time. He wants to borrow some more books from Sloane. Dale suggests that Ray’s book will require 30 plates. He informs Sloane that he need only indicate when he would like the Bishop to pay him. He inquires after the author of a botanical treatise. 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]).