BANKS, SIR Joseph, English naturalist: b. London Jan. 1743; d. Islesworth, 19 June O 1820. At oxford he began to study botany and other branches of natural history, to which his attention had already been turned from about the age of 14. He formed a volunteer class in the university and brought Mr. Lyons from Cambridge to teach it. In May 1766 he was chosen a member of the Royal Society, and in the following summer he went to Newfound land and proceeded to Hudson Bay to collect plants. In 1768 he, with Dr. Solander, a pupil of Linnaeus and assistant librarian at the British Museum, accompanied Cook on his voyage of discovery, Banks being appointed naturalist to the, expedition. In an expedition into the interior of the desolate Tierra del Fuego, for the purpose of examining the country, the two naturalists narrowly escaped perishing with cold. Banks procured the in troduction of the bread-fruit tree into the West Indies, and he wrote the botanical observa tions in the account of Cook's voyages. In 1772 he visited Iceland with Dr. Solander, in
order to make himself acquainted with its natural productions. During this voyage the Hebrides were examined, and the columnar stratification of the rocks surrounding the caves of Staffa was made 1mown to naturalists for the first time. Banks became president. of the Royal Society in 1777. In 1781 he was made a baronet. The French chose him a member of the National Institute in 1802, be cause to his intercession they owed the recovery of the papers of La Peyrouse relating to his voyage, which had fallen into the hands of the Bntish. His library and his collections in natural history are celebrated. Besides other contributions he wrote (A Short Account of the Causes of the Blight, the Mildew, and the Rust in Corn' (1805). In accordance with a contingent benuest his collections were added to the British Museum. The genui Banksia, of the natural order Proteacem, was named in honor of him by the younger Linnmus.