Letter 2911

Richardson received the books Sloane lent to him. He discusses Liebknecht’s observations ‘relating to the petrifaction of the yellow sand’ and the process of its formation. The account reminded him of when some laborers were enlarging his fish pound and came upon a ‘rusty heavy sand (the weight of which they very much compained of)’. He discusses the sand in detail. Richardson writes of the ‘Crosbeake’, a bird he characterizes as ‘very mischeivouse to apples’. He saw a ‘nest of them […] in the parish of Hally-fax the young ones were taken before they were wel featherd 2 dyed in a few days’. His attention turns to the ‘House Sparrow’, which he thinks have been neglected by naturalists. He will send one if possible. He is glad to hear Sloane’s grandson recovered from smallpox. Inoculations have not been taking place in North Bierely, much to Richardson’s consternation. Richardson was a physician and botanist who traveled widely in England, Wales, and Scotland in search of rare specimens. He corresponded and exchanged plants with many well-known botanists and naturalists (W. P. Courtney, Richardson, Richard (16631741), rev. Peter Davis, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2010 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23576, accessed 31 May 2011]).