Thus far this journey was a mere scheme; but as Captain Triewald, a man well known for his abilities in England, gave his Observations on the Cultivation of Silk in a series of Memoirs to the Royal Academy of Sciences, and mentioned therein a kind of mulberry tree, which was discovered by Dr. Linnæus, and which bore the rigours of the Swedish climate as well as a fir or pine tree; this circumstance revived the proposal of such a journey in the year 1745. Count Tessin, a nobleman of established merit both in the political and learned world, becoming president of the Royal Academy, it was unanimously agreed upon to send Professor Kalm to North America. The expences were at first a great obstacle; but the Royal Academy [[vii]]wrote to the three universities to assist them in this great and useful undertaking. Aobo sent first her small contribution, Lund had nothing to spare, but Upsala made up this deficiency by a liberal contribution.
Count Piper was intreated to give a family exhibition to Mr. Kalm, which he readily promised, but as the Academy had obtained from the convocation of the university of Upsala and the magistrates of Stockholm, another exhibition of the family of Helmsfield for Mr. Kalm, Count Piper refused to grant his exhibition, as being contrary to the statutes of the university and without any precedent, that one person should enjoy two exhibitions. The present king of Sweden being then prince royal, successor to the throne, and chancellor of the university, wrote to the convocation, and expressed his wishes to have from the treasury of the university for so useful a purpose, about 1000 plates, or about 150l. sterling. The university complied generously with the desire of her chancellor, and gave orders that the money should be paid to the Royal Academy. The board for promoting manufactures gave 300 plates, or about 45l. Mr. Kalm spent in this journey his salary, and besides very near 130l. of his own fortune, so that at his return he found [[viii]]himself obliged to live upon a very small pittance. The rest of the expences the Academy made up from her own fund.
We on purpose have given this detail from Mr. Kalm’s long preface, to shew the reader with what public spirit this journey has been supported in a country where money is so scarce, and what a patriotic and laudable ardor for the promotion of sciences in general, and especially of natural history and husbandry animates the universities, the public boards, and even the private persons, in this cold climate, which goes so far, that they chuse rather to spend their own private fortunes, than to give up so beneficial and useful a scheme. We have the same instance in Dr. Hasselquist, who with a sickly and consumptive constitution, went to Asia Minor, Egypt and Palestine, and collected such great riches in new plants and animals, that Dr. Linnæus’s system would never have contained so many species, had he not made use of these treasures, which the queen of Sweden generously bought by paying the debts of Dr. Hasselquist, who died in his attempt to promote natural history. The Reverend Mr. Osbeck in his voyage to China, made an infinite number of useful and interesting observations at the expence of his whole salary, and [[ix]]published them by the contributions of his parish. The Reverend Mr. Toreen died by the fatigues of the same voyage, and left his letters published along with Osbeck, as a monument of his fine genius, and spirit for promoting natural history. We here look upon the expences as trifling, but they are not so in Sweden, and therefore are certainly the best monuments to the honour of the nation and the great Linnæus, who in respect to natural history is the primum mobile of that country.
Professor Kalm having obtained leave of his Majesty to be absent from his post as professor, and having got a passport, and recommendations to the several Swedish ministers at the courts of London, Paris, Madrid, and at the Hague, in order to obtain passports for him in their respective states, set out from Upsala, the 16th. of October 1747, accompanied by Lars Yungstrœm, a gardener well skilled in the knowledge of plants and mechanics, and who had at the same time a good hand for drawing, whom he took into his service. He then set sail from Gothenburgh, the 11th. of December but a violent hurricane obliged the ship he was in to take shelter in the harbour of Grœmstad in Norway, from which place he made excursions to Arendal and Christiansand. He [[x]]went again to sea February the 8th. 1748, and arrived at London the 17th. of the same month. He staid in England till August 15th. in which interval of time he made excursions to Woodford in Essex, to little Gaddesden in Hertfordshire, where William Ellis, a man celebrated for his publications in husbandry lived, but whose practical husbandry Mr. Kalm found not to be equal to the theory laid down in his writings; he likewise saw Ivinghoe in Buckinghamshire, Eaton and several other places, and all the curiosities and gardens in and about London: at last he went on board a ship, and traversed the ocean to Philadelphia in Pensylvania, which was formerly called New Sweden, where he arrived September the 26th. The rest of that year he employed in collecting seeds of trees and plants, and sending them up to Sweden; and in several excursions in the environs of Philadelphia. The winter he passed among his countrymen at Raccoon in New Jersey. The next year 1749, Mr. Kalm went through New Jersey and New York along the river Hudson to Albany, and from thence, after having crossed the lakes of St. George and Champlain, to Montreal and Quebec, he returned that very year against winter to Philadelphia, and sent a new cargo of seeds, plants and curiosities to Sweden. In [[xi]]the year 1750, Mr. Kalm saw the western parts of Pensylvania and the coast of New Jersey; Yungstrœm staid in the former province all the summer for the collection of seeds, and Prof. Kalm in the mean time passed New York and the blue mountains, went to Albany, then along the river Mohawk to the Iroquois nations, where he got acquainted with the Mohawk’s, Oneida’s, Tuskarora’s, Onandaga’s and Kayugaw’s. He then viewed and navigated the great lake Ontario, and saw the celebrated fall at Niagara. In his return from his summer expedition, he crossed the blue mountains in a different place, and in October again reached Philadelphia.
In the year 1751, the 13th. of February, he went at Newcastle on board a ship for England, and after a passage subject to many dangers in the most dreadful hurricanes, he arrived March the 27th. in the Thames, and two days after in London. He took passage for Gothenburgh May the 5th. and was the 16th. of the same month at the place of his destination, and the 13th. of June he again arrived at Stockholm, after having been on this truly useful expedition three years and eight months. He afterwards returned again to his place of professor at Aobo, where in a small garden of his own, he cultivates [[xii]]many hundreds of American plants, as there is not yet a public botanical garden for the use of the university, and he with great expectation wishes to see what plants will bear the climate, and bear good and ripe seeds so far north. He published the account of his journey by intervals, for want of encouragement, and fearing the expences of publishing at once in a country where few booksellers are found, and where the author must very often embrace the business of bookseller, in order to reimburse himself for the expences of his publication. He published in his first volume observations on England, and chiefly on its husbandry, where he with the most minute scrupulousness and detail, entered into the very minutiæ of this branch of his business for the benefit of his countrymen, and this subject he continued at the beginning of the second volume. A passage cross the Atlantic ocean is a new thing to Swedes, who are little used to it, unless they go in the few East India ships of their country. Every thing therefore was new to Mr. Kalm, and he omitted no circumstance unobserved which are repeated in all the navigators from the earlier times down to our own age. It would be a kind of injustice to the public, to give all this at large to the reader. All that part describing [[xiii]]England and its curiosities and husbandry we omitted. The particulars of the passage from England to Pensylvania we abridged; no circumstance interesting to natural history or to any other part of literature has been omitted. And from his arrival at Philadelphia, we give the original at large, except where we omitted some trifling circumstances, viz. the way of eating oysters, the art of making apple dumplings, and some more of the same nature, which struck that Swedish gentleman with their novelty.
Mr. Kalm makes use of the Swedish measure; its foot is to the English foot, as 1134 to 1350. For his meteorological observations, he employed the thermometer of Prof. Celsius generally made use of in Sweden, and his was of Celsius’s own making; the interval from the point of freezing to the point of boiling water, is equally divided in this thermometer into 100 parts. In the names of plants, we have chiefly employed after his directions the Linnæan names in the last edition of his Spec. Plantarum, and Systema Naturæ, Vol. 2. But as his descriptions of animals, plants, and minerals are very short, he promises to give them at large some time hence in a Latin work. He excuses the negligence of his stile, from the time in which he methodised [[xiv]]his observations, which was commonly at night, after being fatigued with the business of the preceding day, when his spirits were almost exhausted, and he, incapable of that sprightliness which commends so many curious performances of that nature.
He gives you his observations as they occurred day after day, which makes him a faithful relater, notwithstanding it takes away all elegance of style, and often occasions him to make very sudden transitions from subjects very foreign to one another. This defect we will endeavour to supply by a very copious index at the end of the whole work, rather than derange the author’s words, which are the more to be relied on, as being instantly committed to paper warm from his reflections.
At last he arms himself with a very noble indifference against the criticism of several people, founded on the great aim he had in view by his performance, which was no less than public utility. This he looks upon as the true reward of his pains and expences.
These are the contents of his long preface. We have nothing to add, but that we intend to go on in this work as soon as possible, hoping to be supported and encouraged in this undertaking, by a nation [[xv]]which is the possessor of that great continent, a great part of which is here accurately and impartially described, especially at this time when American affairs attract the attention of the public.
We intend to join for the better illustration of the work, a map and drawings of American birds and animals which were not in the original. They will be copied from original drawings and real birds and animals from North America, which we have access to, and must therefore give to this translation a superiority above the original and the German translation.