60 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



The Geological Commission of Finland. 



On behalf of the Geological Commission of Finland, we desire first of 

 all to express our high appreciation of the honor rendered us in inviting the 

 Commission to take part in the celebration, by the New York Academy, 

 of the two hundredth anniversary of Carl von Linne. 



We are proud to think that we have some right to reckon this great 

 memory among our own, because Finland in Linne's time was united to 

 Sweden; and a large number of us Finlanders are still, by language and 

 descent, connected with that land. Among his disciples were also several 

 of our countrymen ; and the interest which ever since that period has existed 

 here for the study of botany, and also of zoology, we regard as a direct 

 inheritance from Linne's time. Not only naturalists ex professo have taken 

 part in the investigation of the flora and fauna of our country, but also 

 physicians, clergymen, government officials and the general public, who 

 have, ever since Linne's days, constantly and with zealous eagerness lent 

 their aid to the augmentation of our store of knowledge in things pertaining 

 to natural science. 



By his travels, among the first which were undertaken for a purely 

 scientific purpose, Linne has also given an example to the numerous explorers 

 who since his time have gone out from northern lands — among those born 

 in Finland we may mention Laxman the explorer of Siberia, Castren the 

 linguist, and Baron A. E. Nordenskiold, the geologist, and discoverer of the 

 Northeast passage — and to all those who, after Linn6's time, have united 

 the courage and energy of the pioneer with scientific thoroughness. 



We geologists remember in especial that Linne — who had very correct 

 ideas of the geological sequence among the silurian rocks of Sweden and 

 the importance of fossils, and whose conception of the geological importance 

 of the deluge was for his time unusually free from bias — can be reckoned 

 among the early pioneers of geology and as a predecessor of the great natu- 

 ralists who somewhat later, in Scotland and Saxony, laid the foundation- 

 stones of scientific geology. He had a notion of the immense length of 

 geological time, and expressed opinions which contained the germ of the 

 actualistic doctrine that afterwards proved so fruitful for our science. 



It has been the mission of the Anglo-Saxon nations to work out this 

 doctrine and to build up on this basis the science of geology. When in our 

 days we Northerners see without jealousy the hegemony in natural science 

 pass over to the great nations which have continents for their field of re- 

 search, we still remember with pride that it was at one time held by the 

 little nation to which Linne belonged, and see in the festival with which 



