| Administrative History | NB MS 39 gives the date of this letter as 16 March |
| Description | Letter from John Ellis, Gray's Inn, London, to David Skene in which he discusses the progress of the controversy over corallines stating that he has recently given an answer to Pallas' account to the Royal Society; he refers to Woulfe, Baster and Dr. J. Albert Schlosser of Amsterdam; he has sent a letter to Lord Hillsborough on actinia sociata or the 'animal flowers that are connected by one common tube'; he discusses Munckhausen's experiments with seeds of fungi and his own theories and experiments concerning putrefaction; he states that he has showed these experiments to Mr. Badenach, a surgeon who has been trying McBride's wort for the cure of sea scurvy; he has received some baderlocks from Dundee although they were very bashed about by storms; he comments on Skene's proposal to send paper on zoophytes to the Royal Society; he describes a method of examining gorgonias; he states that Mr Pennant who published the 'British Zoology' is now studying mollusca and Mr Banks is to go to the newly discovered islands of the South Sea to study their natural history; he describes his method of preserving acorns in wax; Mr Drury is working on a book concerning rarer insects; he will look out for a copy of Borlase's 'Natural History' for him, asks if he has Linnaeus' 'Regium Animale' and will send to 'Mons. Harris for his insect book', 26 March 1768. |