Letter 3679

Since his return from London Richardson has encountered nothing of interest in natural history. He is not healthy enough to travel far from home. He sends a small box of fossils, samples of a particular type of diamond, and limestone rocks. Richardson describes the specimens in some detail. Thomas Knowlton, Lord Burlington’s gardener, told him there are thousands of ‘stagnales’ at a large lake ‘nigh Beverly Yorkeshire’. 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]).