SIR,
I Presume to prefix your name to a performance which will in some measure display to the British nation, the circumstances of a country which is so happy as to be under its protection.
Every lover of knowledge, especially of natural history, must be sensible of your zealous endeavours to promote every branch of it. It was my great happiness to fall within your notice, and to receive very substantial and seasonable favours from your [[iv]]patronage and recommendations. I shall ever remain mindful of your generosity and humanity towards me, but must lament that I have no other means of expressing my gratitude than by this publick acknowledgment.
Accept then, Dear Sir, my earnest wishes for your prosperity, and think me with the truest esteem,
Your most obliged,
and obedient
humble Servant,
John Reinhold Forster.
Warrington,
July 25th. 1770. [[v]]
PREFACE.
The present Volume of Professor Kalm’s Travels through North America, is originally written in the Swedish language, but was immediately after translated into the German by the two Murray’s, both of whom are Swedes, and one a pupil of Dr. Linnæus, and therefore we may be sure that this translation corresponds exactly with the original.
Baron Sten Charles Bielke, Vice president of the Court of Justice in Finland, was the first who made a proposal to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, to send an able man to the northern parts of Siberia and Iceland, as places which are partly under the same latitude with Sweden, and to make there such observations and collections of seeds and plants, as would improve the Swedish husbandry, gardening, manufactures, [[vi]]arts and sciences. Dr. Linnæus found the proposal just, but he thought that a journey through North America would be yet of a more extensive utility, than that through the before-mentioned countries; for the plants of America were then little known, and not scientifically described, and by several trials, it seemed probable that the greatest part of the North American plants, would bear very well the Swedish winters; and what was more important, a great many American plants promised to be very useful in husbandry and physic.