“ At twelve years of age he was inspired with a passion for natural history through being presented with Francis Willughby’s Ornithology; and a tour in Cornwall in 1746–1747 awakened his strong interest in minerals and fossils. In 1750 his account of an earthquake at Downing was inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, where there also appeared in 1756 a paper on several coralloid bodies he had collected at Coalbrookdale, Shropshire. In the following year, at the instance of Linnaeus, he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Upsala. ”