To Thomas Jefferson from Constantine S. Rafinesque, 27 November 1804
From Constantine S. Rafinesque
Philada. 27th 9ber 1804
Sir
Having left Washington City soon after sending you a few seeds of the Jeffersonia, I did not receive the Letter you wrote me in answer, until having heard there was a Letter for me at the Post office of that City, I made application for it, and got it at my return from a Journey to the Blue mountains of Pensylvania and New Jersey.
It is with regret I perceive, that pursuits of an opposite Nature to Botany and Natural History those ever pleasing Sciences for an enlightened Soul, have weakened your familiarity with them; but am extremely thankful for your offer of recommending me to good Botanical Counsellors whenever I shall come to your part of the Country, it is likely I shall visit Virginia again next year, and shall then make use of your kind offer if I have the honor of seeing you again either at Washington or Monticello.
I am going to send this Winter a Florula Columbica to Dr. Mitchill for his Medical repository, it will contain a Catalogue of nearly 800 plants I have found in the Territory or District of Columbia both in Virginia & Maryland and a short Description or rather Car. spec. of several New plants.
The Western parts of the U.S. are as yet very little known, I intend to go and explore part of Kentucky & Ohio next Spring: I wish I could go Still farther and across the Mississipi into the unexplored region of Louisiana, but it is a mere impossibility in my private Capacity to visit such unsettled and as yet very wild Country; I wonder the American Governt. have not sent some Botanist there along with Mess Lewis & Hunter; a Country containing perhaps a great number of the Valuable Vegetables of Mexico is worth and deserves highly to be fully explored; If it ever seems worthwhile to you, to send a Botanist in Company with the parties you propose to make visit the Akansas or other Rivers, I can not forbear Mentioning that I would think myself highly honored with the choice of in being selected to make known the Vegete. and Animal riches of such a New Country and would think that Glory fully adequate to compensate the dangers and difficulties to encounter—
I remain respectfully Sir Yr. most Obedt Servt
C. S. Rafinesque
RC (ViW: Tucker-Coleman Collection); at foot of text: “His Excy. Th. Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ as received 1 Dec. and so recorded in SJL; also endorsed by TJ: “his Address is Mr. C. S. Rafinesque to the care of mr Thos. Clifford, Phila.”
Letter you wrote me in answer: TJ to Rafinesque, 29 July, written in response to Rafinesque to TJ, 23 July.
Florula Columbica: Rafinesque compiled information about the flora of Washington, D.C., during a trip there in July and August 1804 and originally intended to submit his study to Samuel Latham Mitchill for publication in the Medical Repository. He sent his manuscript catalogue instead to the Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, and in 1805, editor Benjamin Smith Barton announced its publication in “future parts” of his journal, with large additions from his own regional botanical studies. Rafinesque later charged that Barton “never performed his promise” and suggested that Barton may have intentionally suppressed his work (Charles Boewe, The Life of C. S. Rafinesque, A Man of Uncommon Zeal [Philadelphia, 2011], 43, 82-4, and supplement, “The Correspondence of C. S. Rafinesque, with Introduction, Chronology, Calendar of Letters, and Notes of Correspondents,” 73-7, 105-6, 113, 116, 136-7, 452-4; Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, 2 [1805-07], 176-8; C. S. Rafinesque, Circular Address on Botany and Zoology [Philadelphia, 1816], 12; Elbert L. Little, Jr., “A Note on Rafinesque’s Florula Columbica,” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 56 [1943], 57-66; A. O. Tucker and N. H. Dill, “Rafinesque’s Florula Delawarica,” Bartonia, 55 [1989], 4-14).
Car. spec.: caractères spéciaux (French), meaning a list of distinguishing characteristics.
have not sent some Botanist: in his autobiographical reflections three decades later, Rafinesque wrote that he had delayed returning to Europe because he thought he might be asked to join Meriwether Lewis’s expedition (Boewe, Life of Rafinesque, 35).