From Dawson Turner to Ellen Hutchins   28 Apr 1808

Madam

I really feel so much pleasure in your correspondence & am so interested in the zeal & success with which you prosecute the study of our favourite science that I cannot deny myself the gratification of immediately replying to the letter I have just received from you, though a number of other things about which I ought to be engaged will necessarily distract my attention while writing. I hope that a letter which I sent you on the 19th of this month has by this time nearly found its way to Bantry. It was followed only two days afterwards by a parcel of mosses which were forwarded by the Government dispatches to Dr Scott with a particular request that he would lose no time in conveying them to you. From the very bad state of his health at present I am apprehensive that he may not attend strictly to my wishes & therefore, if they have not arrived before this letter, I could wish you to send Mr Mackay directions about them; although they are not numerous, I am anxious to have them in your hands, as I am sure you will find them of considerable service as stepping stones, by the aid of which you may walk onwards in the prosecution of this delightful tribe, & particularly as enabling you to form a more clear & comprehensive idea of the Genera than can be afforded by the species confined to any particular spot. If it be possible, but I doubt it will not, I will take an opportunity of sending you some more before I go to London next month. I go about the 24th to attend the Linnean Anniversary & if I can be in any wise useful to you during my stay there, which will not exceed 10 days, you do not know how happy you would make me by employing me. When I return, I should like, if it be practicable, to ramble about for a month in the summer, & I should in such case be attracted to Dublin for the weak health of my friend, Dr Scott, for whom I entertain the greatest regard, makes me fearful that, if I lose this opportunity of seeing him, Death may deprive me of any future one. I mention this as in such case there would be easy means of my sending anything to you, or receiving from you, during the few days I spend in your Island, the inhabitants of which (I must tell you) I found, when among them before, by far the most engaging & pleasant of any I ever met with. — I have scribbled thus far, as already half to fill my sheet, without once noticing the contents of your letter, or even thanking you for them. Fucus capillaris is undoubtedly right, & is an excellent acquisition. I trust you will find more of it, & find it in good fruit & if you do, I shall be obliged to you to lay out a small piece on glass, as the extreme tenderness of its texture prevents the taking of it off paper to examine. If you have yet procured the late Nos of my Historia Fucorum you will have seen an engraving made from a dry specimen not unlike yours, though not equally good. How vexed does your correspondence make me that I had the folly to set about such a work as this till I had procured more materials, or even that I had the vanity ever to undertake it at all. I am got so far as to feel my own ignorance completely, & to recognise the truth of Pope's wonderful comparison: I no longer “seem to tread the sky”, but see more clearly the “Alps rise on Alps”, with summits that mortal man will never reach. Most seriously speaking, I know little or nothing of the contents of your letter. No 7 strikes me as being the same as No 23 of the Confervae in your parcel. — No 8 is Ulva plantagenea of Roth, a plant we occasionally find on this coast, but never so good as your specimens. — No 9 I should still call F cristatus, indeed it comes more near to my variety Y than the fine specimens you sent before, as you will judge from the morsel I now enclose. Of this & of No 10 I should be obliged to you for a supply at some future time. The latter is different from anything I know, & very m[text missing] from F amphibious, of which I shall put a fragment into this letter just to show you what it is, & I will take an early opportunity of sending fine specimens. By the way let me remind you that you have not yet told me what Fuci you want, & pray point out any of the flowering plants of this part of Britain that you would like to have. I need trouble you for Conferva verrucosa, farther than that I should be glad to see a single specimen from your coast. My idea of this plant has always been that it must one day form a new Genus, together with Conf villosa, & fluviatilis, & F pedunculatus, viridis, & perhaps aculeatus & ligulatus. I need not say that the present genera of marine plants are worth nothing, & the whole system must be altered from beginning to end, as soon as we get some idea of the fruit. I had almost forgotten to notice your No 11, which appears to be different from anything I am acquainted with. In form & colour it exactly resembles F Phyllitis, but the texture seems unlike, and the dots on the frond producing little tufts of fibres are what I never saw any traces of that plant. Perhaps, if you will trouble yourself to gather more of it, we may trace them to each other. F canaliculatus I never met with in an inflated state. For good small specimens of F bulbosus or F digitatus, such as may be drawn, I should be obliged to you. You are so good as to ask me if I want more of different things — Do not, I pray, make me more unreasonable than I naturally am — I never yet was to any person so inveterate a beggar as I am to you. I should long since have ceased to beg, built that I am sure your kindness has a pleasure in being useful to others through my medium. My specimens of Dicranum osmundioides have all blunt leaves, though in some there is a very short apiculus, formed by the nerve going beyond the membrane. It is a moss I never found but once, & then sparingly near the foot of Snowdon: in this horrible sandy flat we have no mosses nor lichens. Pray accept the assurance of the esteem & respect of Madam Your much obliged &

very faithful Servant

Dawson Turner

Yarmouth 28^th April 1808