It was Mr. Banks’s intention to accompany Captain Cook in his second voyage, in 1772: but the Navy Board showed no willingness to provide that accommodation which the extent of his preparations and the number of his scientific followers required, and he gave up the project, which indeed he could not satisfactorily execute. In the summer of that year he went to Iceland. Passing along the western coast of Scotland, he was led to visit Staffa, in consequence of local information; and to his description that singular island was first indebted for its general celebrity. He spent a month in Iceland. An account of this visit has been published by M. Von Troil, a Swedish clergyman, who formed one of the party. On this, as on other occasions, Mr. Banks, unwearied in quest of knowledge, seemed careless of the fame to which most would have aspired as the reward of their labours. Of none of his travels has he himself given any account in a separate publication; indeed, a few papers in the Horticultural Transactions, and a very curious account of the causes of mildew in corn, not printed for sale, constitute the mass of his published works. But his visit was productive of much good to the Icelanders, though it remained uncommemorated in expensive quartos. He watched over their welfare, when their communication with Denmark was interrupted by war between that country and England; and twice sent cargoes of corn, at his own expense, to relieve their sufferings in seasons of scarcity. His benevolence was warmly acknowledged by the Danish Court. Returning to England, Mr. Banks, at the early age of thirty, entered on that tranquil and useful course of life, from which during a long series of years he never deviated. His thirst for travel was checked or satiated; he undertook no more distant expeditions, but he ceased not to cultivate the sciences, for which he had undergone so many hardships. It was long hoped that he would publish some account of the rich harvest of vegetable productions which he had collected in the unknown regions of the Pacific; and for this purpose it was known that he had caused a very large number of plates to be engraved at a great expense: but, most probably owing to the death of Solander, these have never been given to the world. But if he hesitated to communicate himself to the public the results of his labours, in amends his museum and his library were placed most freely at the command of those who sought, and were able to profit by his assistance; and to these sources many splendid works, especially on botany, have mainly owed their merits, and perhaps their existence.