The West Indian Voyage of 1687–89 had had, it may here be remarked, other results besides that of exciting new emulation—at home and abroad—in the study of natural history, and in the amassing in cabinets and presses of the dried and preserved objects of that study. It gave a marked impulse to arboriculture, both in England and in Ireland. What SLOANE had to show, and to tell of, led to the sending oversea of vessels expressly prepared for the transport of living trees; and several noble ornaments of our parks and pleasure grounds date their introduction to English and Irish soil from the expeditions so set on foot. The _Natural History of Jamaica_ excited considerable interest abroad, as well as at home. [Sidenote: Corresp. of Sloane and Briasson; in MS. Sloane, 4039, ff. 136–140.] Bernard de JUSSIEU offered to undertake the editorship of a French translation, and BRIASSON, a Parisian bookseller of some eminence, wrote to SLOANE that he was willing to incur the charges and risk of publication, on condition that the author would send the copper plates of the original work to Paris, for use in the new edition. Sir Hans, however, objected to incur the risk of this transmission across the channel, but was willing to have the needful impression worked off in London; an arrangement to which the Parisian, in his turn, was disinclined to assent, being of opinion—perhaps not unjustly—that, in 1743, the art of copperplate printing was better understood in Paris than in London. On these grounds the negotiation was broken off. [Sidenote: GROWTH OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM.] Amidst these varied avocations, the growth of the library and museum went on unceasingly. Friends and foes contributed, in turn, to its enrichment. The year 1702 saw the incorporation with the original gatherings of the West India voyage of the splendid collections of COURTEN, the friend of SLOANE’S youth. In 1710, Sir Hans acquired the valuable herbaria of his old assailant, Leonard PLUKENET. In 1718 he purchased the extensive collections, in all departments of natural history, of another friend of early years, James PETIVER. The herbarium of Adam BUDDLE, a botanist little remembered now but of note in his generation, came to SLOANE, as a token of friendship, from the death-bed of its collector. [Sidenote: MS. Sloane, 4069, _passim_.] The scientific possessions of Dr. Christopher MERRET were purchased from his son, and from time to time, when valuable collections were known to be on sale upon the Continent, agents went across to buy. Of these numerous sources of augmentation the museum of PETIVER was next in importance to that of COURTEN—but with a considerable interval. It is said (in the contemporary correspondence, as I think) that its cost to SLOANE was four thousand pounds. But remembering what four thousand pounds was a hundred and fifty years ago, there is reason to suspect some exaggeration in the statement. [Sidenote: THE NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS OF PETIVER.]