n Part I, Chapter V of his Travels, William Bartram writes:n Part I, Chapter V of his Travels, William Bartram writes:
“Having completed my Hortus Siccus, and made up my collections of seeds and growing roots, the fruits of my late western tour, and sent them to Charleston, to be forwarded to Europe, I spent the remaining part of this season in botanical excursions…”(88)
Hortus Siccus or “dry garden” is a Latin term botanists formerly used for an herbarium, a collection of dried plant specimens, carefully identified and labeled, which they had assembled for the benefit of later observers. The term also aptly describes Bartram’s Travels, which contains literary specimens of southeastern North America, dried and preserved by the process of writing, and “forwarded to Europe” for successive generations of readers. The Travels is Bartram’s literary herbarium, a book that collected “seeds and growing roots” of greater vitality than its author recognized.
American readers who could obtain copies of the Travels(89) were fascinated by Bartram’s vivid descriptions of the Southeast and frequently discussed it in their letters.(90) An impressive number of America’s leading naturalists not only read and discussed Bartram’s book, but physically retraced the naturalist’s route to experience for themselves the many natural wonders he described. A few of the best known early followers of Bartram’s trail were Thomas Nuttall (in 1815), William Baldwin (in 1817), William Maclure, Thomas Say, Titian Peale and George Ord (all in 1818), Major John E. LeConte (in 1822) and John J. Audubon (in 1832). Many others followed Bartram’s circuitous trail vicariously from the comfort of their homes.
The book’s impact on European readers was even greater. Within a few years of the first printing of the Travels, nine European editions appeared in six different languages, all pirated from the American text. These translations, which often “improved” Bartram’s language and ideas, did much to spread his name and influence during the nineteenth century. European readers were fascinated by his portrait of subtropical America and its native Indians(91)
One foreign reader whose exposure to Bartram was to help shape the course of scientific thought was a man not born until six years after the first publication of the Travels, Sir Charles Lyell (1797–1875). Lyell undoubtedly first read Bartram’s Travels during his natural history studies at Oxford University. Its haunting descriptions of ancient fossilized trees (by the White Cliffs of Port Hudson) fascinated the young geologist who, like many other nineteenth century naturalists, determined to retrace Bartram’s route and see for himself the phenomena the Quaker had described.
Traveling to the United States in 1845, Lyell examined the cliffs in question and confirmed Bartram’s suggestion that the fossilized tree stumps had been buried by subsequent sediment.(92) In later editions of his classic work Principles of Geology (first published 1830–33), Lyell cited the Mississippi Delta and alluvial plain and particularly Bartram’s eighteenth century description of the White Cliffs as supporting evidence for his (then) controversial principle of uniformitarianism. By establishing the theory that all geological phenomena could be explained as the result of existing forces operating uniformly through time in this way, Lyell prepared the scientific world for Charles Darwin’s equally controversial theories on evolution. Through his writing, advice, and personal friendship, Lyell was to strongly influence the author of The Origin of Species (1859) who later admitted, “I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell’s brain.”(93) William Bartram’s influence on Charles Lyell, and thus indirectly on Charles Darwin, is a subject worthy of further research.
Although Bartram was probably unaware of the true proportions of his book’s impact on history, it is quite possible that he did appreciate its importance to science and would have been pleased to know of Lyell’s interest in it. That Bartram realized the effect his writing would have on the history of literature is much less likely. Though an avid reader, Bartram never considered himself a writer per se. He envisioned his Travels as a way of sharing his traveling experiences and scientific observations, while at the same time establishing the importance of America’s natural history for the world at large. While the book accomplished both these things, it really did much more. The following analysis of the book, prepared by William Howarth for this study, will discuss William Bartram as an author and attempt to put Bartram’s Travels into the broader context of literary history.
Footnotes
86. Tim M. Berra, “An Analysis of the Significance of William Bartram to Ichthyology,” Bartram Trail Conference Technical Study, 1978. (On File with the Bartram Trail Conference.)
87. See G. S. Myers, “A Brief Sketch of the History of Ichthyology in America to the Year 1850,” Copeia, 1963, pp. 33–41; and Berra, Bartram Trail Conference Technical Study, op. cit.
88. Bartram’s Travels, op. cit., p. 48, Harper, p. 31.
89. The demand was such that English, Irish, and European copies were imported. (Only one American edition appeared prior to 1927.)
90. For a representative selection of references to Bartram consult the correspondence of Henry Muhlenberg in the collection of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia; the travel diary of Benjamin Johnson (1796–1797) in the manuscript collection of The Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum, Delaware; and see the collection of letters of William Baldwin edited by William Darlington in Reliquiae Baldwinianae. (Republished with the introduction by Joseph Ewan by Hafner Publishing Company, New York, 1969.)
91. Rose Marie Cutting, “Writings About William Bartram, 1792–1974,” in John and William Bartram, William Byrd ll and St. John de Crevecoeur: A Reference Guide, Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1976, pp. 38–39. This book has been relied on as a source for summaries of scarce 18th and 19th century materials.
92. Sir Charles Lyell, A Second Visit to the United States of North America, Vol. II, New York, 1849, pp. 137–142.
93. R. C. Olby, Early Nineteenth Century European Scientists, London, p. 140. For more information on Lyell’s significance and influence on Darwin, see: Philip G. Fothergill, Historical Aspects of Organic Evolution, London 1952; Leonard G. Wilson, Editor, Sir Charles Lyell’s Scientific Journals on the Species Question, New Haven, 1970; Bently Glass, Editor, Forerunners of Darwin, 1745–1859, Baltimore, 1959–68.
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