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Folder contains correspondence.

Letters from Lawson to Professor Balfour regarding botany and events at Queen's University, calendar and testimonials in favour of Lawson submitted to Queen's University in 1854.

re: Biochemistry of wax of Bayberry, Myrica cerifera, gathered locally. [See "Remarks on Myrica cerifera or Candleberry Myrtle", Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinb. 8: 108-109, 1866, communicated 11 February 1864.]

re: MS on Leaves of Ulex (Whin), published in Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinb. 8: 108-109, 1866.

re: Warning against Stewart, said to have left for Scotland with Letter to McNab [Head Gardener], legally "mad" but to Lawson "bad".

re: Confidential reasons for wishing to resign as Clerk of Caledonian Horticultural Society [no botany].

re: Visit to London; meet Mr. Syme, go to Royal Bot. Gardens, Kew, to see Hooker [away] but meet Smith [presumably J.E. Smith, Curator of Linnaean Herbarium]; Mr. Henfrey married [presumably the editor of Henfrey's Botanical Magazine]. Gather aquatic plants in Regent's Park gardens, at Knight & Perry's nursery in Chelsea. At Wandsworth finds the newly arrived Canadian Waterweed [Anacharis] and others, basis for his paper "Notice of plants found near London", Phytologist 4: 460-462, 1852.

[Lawson had been at Queen's College as Professor of Chemistry & Natural History since Sept. 1858 and we know he kept in touch with his old professor back in Edinburgh regularly, but this is the only letter that has been preserved apparently, to its date.] re: The Stewart Slander Affair at Queen's College, with documentary evidence of Lawson's involvement as Secretary of the Medical Faculty. Lawson, although he 'kept-his-nose-clean' is "fed-up" with the affair and is looking for another position, enquires about Chair at St. Andrews. He sent MS for publication [title not stated]; no other botanical matters.

re: MS of Synopsis of Canada Ferns sent [published in Edinb. New Philos. Jour. 19: 102-116, 273-291, 1864); winter-hardiness of plants at Kingston, and Description of Queen's botanic Garden [letter published verbatim in Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinb. 7: 586-587, 1963]

re: Reasons for leaving Queen's for Dalhousie, -partly due to the Stewart-Weir Case [not mentioned in documents at Queen's], but mainly for prospects of a bigger job; the conditions at Dalhousie described; visit at Boston and meeting with Asa Gray, Wyman, Agassiz, Holmes, etc. at Harvard. Enclosed his MS "On the chemical and natural history of lupuline" [See Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinb. 8: 131-144, 1866].