ENCYCLOPÆDIA AMERICANA.

A

POPULAR DICTIONARY
DICTIONARY

OF

ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE, HISTORY, POLITICS, AND
BIOGRAPHY.

A NEW EDITION;

INCLUDING

A COPIOUS COLLECTION OF ORIGINAL ARTICLES

IN

AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY;

ON

THE BASIS OF THE SEVENTH EDITION OF THE GERMAN

Conversations-Lexicon.

EDITED BY

FRANCIS LIEBER,

ASSISTED BY

E. WIGGLESWORTH AND T. G. BRADFORD.

VOL. VIII.

BOSTON:

BAZIN AND ELLSWORTH.

1859.

1333

1859 v. 8

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1831. by
CAREY AND LEA,

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

12

ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA.

LEUS. (See Linné.)

Lrt, Charles, but more generally desgnated by his Latinized name, Linnæus, the in celebrated naturalist of his age, was a ative of Sweden. He was the son of a ergyman, and was born May 13, old sale, 1707, at Roshult, in the province of Smaland. His father was fond of gardening, and his little domain was stocked with plants not commonly cultivated-a circumstance to which the prevailing taste of the son may be fairly attributed. He was sent to the grammar-school, and afterwards to the gymnasium of Wexio, to be educated for the ministry; but, as he disliked the studies of the school, and preferred to collect plants and catch butterflies, he remained behind his fellow-pupils in Latin and Greek, and the teachers declared to his father that he was only fit for a mechanic. The father sent him to a shoemaker; but the physician Rothmann, having discovered talents in the boy, induced his parents to let him study. As botany afforded him no prospect of a support, Linné was obliged to study medicine. In 1727, he entered at the university of Lund in Scania, whence he removed, the following year, to Upsal. During his early residence there, the narrowness of his father's circumstances exposed him to great difficulties, from which he was relieved by the patronage of Celsius, the theological professor, an eminent naturalist, who had become acquainted with him in the botanical garden at Upsal, and through whose recommendation he obtained some private pupils. He also formed a friendship with Artedi, a medical student like himself, devoted to the cultivation of natural history. He now, in bis 24th year, conceived the idea of a new

arrangement of plants, or tne sexual sys-
tem of botany, relative to which he wrote
a memoir, which was shown to Rudbeck,
the botanical professor, who was so struck
with its ingenuity, that he received the
author into his house, as tutor to his sons,
and made him his assistant in the office of
delivering lectures. Forty years before,
Rudbeck had made a journey to Lapland,
which excited the curiosity of the learned.
A new journey was now concluded upon,
and, in 1732, Linné was sent, by the acad-
emy of sciences at Upsal, to make a tour
through Lapland, from which he returned
towards the close of the year. Fifty
Swedish dollars were thought sufficient
by Linné to defray his expenses, and with
this small sum he made a journey of more
than 3500 miles, unaccompanied. In
1733, he visited the mining district around
Fahlun, and gave lectures on mineralogy,
having formed a system of that science,
afterwards published in his Systema Natu-
re. While he was thus adding to his repu-
tation at Upsal, he became involved in a
violent quarrel with the medical professor,
Nicholas Rosen, who seems to have acted
with a great deal of illiberality, and found
means to prevent Linné from continuing
his private lectures. He therefore engaged
in a scientific tour through the province
of Dalecarlia, and remained for some
time at Fahlun, lecturing and practis-
ing medicine with considerable
cess. He again went to Lapland on a
mineralogical tour, with seven young inen;
and, in 1735, published a complete Flora
of this country-a classical work. In the
same year, he went to the university of
Harderwyck, in Holland, and took the de-
gree of M. D. He then visited Leyden,
where the first sketch of his Systema Natu

suc

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