To Benjamin Franklin from Johann Reinhold Forster, [late 1771?]
From Johann Reinhold Forster5
ALS: American Philosophical Society
No 2. Sommerset house Stable Yard [late 1771?6]
Sir
Having lately translated Prof: Kalm’s travels through North America, Bossu’s travels through Louisiana, and published a Catalogue of North-American Animals, with another of American plants, and a Centuria of new Insects, not described by Dr. Linnaeus, many of which are Americans; and flattering myself that these publications contain materials not altogether unworthy of the Attention of the learned and curious in America: I take the liberty by Your means, to present the Society for promoting useful knowledge established at Philadelphia in Pensilvania with a Set of the abovementioned works;7 hoping the Society will be pleased to consider them as a small token of the esteem and due regard with which I am Sir Your most obedient humble Servant
John Reinhold Forster.
Addressed: To Benjamin Franklin Esqr. / President of the Philosophical / Society for promoting useful / knowledge established in / Pensylvania / in Craven-Street / Strand
Endorsed: John Reinhold Forster
Donations Transn. Kalms Travels N A Do Bossu’s—Do Louisiana American Plants Centuria of Insects no
5. For Forster see above, XV, 147–8.
6. Or possibly January, 1772. All the books mentioned in it were published in 1771, and early the next February BF forwarded this letter to the APS: BF to Bond below, Feb. 5, 1772.
7. The works that the APS received were Peter Kalm, Travels into North America... (3 vols., Warrington and London, 1770–71); Jean Bernard Bossu, Travels through That Part of North America Formerly Called Louisiana... (2 vols., London, 1771); and Forster’s A Catalogue of the Animals of North America... (London, 1771), Flora Americae Septentrionalis; or a Catalogue of the Plants of North America... (London, 1771), and Novae species insectorum: Centuria I ... (London, 1771).