Octavo, blue cloth (hardcover), 187 pp. Very Good+, with lightly rubbed edges; in a Very Good+, mylar protected dust jacket with lightly rubbed edges. From dust jackeT: The second volume of Pennsylvania Lives is in the field of science, dealing with the Bartrams, father and son, early American botanists. These two quiet but energetic and talented Quakers were among the first to make systematic studies of the flora and other naturalistic elements of America, gaining through their studies and writings a truly distinguished international reputation. John Bartram, with only a meager education, started cultivating and classifying plants on his own farm which is still preserved as a botanical garden in Philadelphia. He gradually became known as an expert, and numbered among his friends and correspondents such prominent Americans as Benjamin Franklin, Dr. Rush, Cadwallader Colden, Conrad Weiser, and James Logan. He was one of the founders of the American Philosophical Society and through his friendship with Peter Collinson of London, with whom he exchanged seeds and information, was introduced to English scientists, Linnaeus of Sweden, Buffon in France, and others. It was Collinson and Franklin who made it possible for Bartram to take his extended journeys from Canada to Florida and as far west as the Great Lakes, during which he made the minute observations recorded in his fascinating letters and journal, frequently quoted in this volume. Equally interested in botany, and an ornithologist as well, though more of a poet than a scientist like his father, William Bartram is known chiefly for his famous Travles (Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida). This book, imbued with a persuasive enthusiams for all natural beauty, made a deep impression on the literary world. Coleridge and Wordsworth both used it for source material, passages from ÒKubla KhanÓ and ÒRuthÓ being directly attributable to William Bartram.