BICENTENARY OF LINNMUS 61 



your honored society celebrates the two hundredth anniversary of his birth a 

 recognition that all scientific exploration which is carried on in an unpreju- 

 diced spirit of order and truth is a work in the vSpirit of Linne. 



Remembering the bond which thus connects your great nation with the 

 small countries of northern Europe, we wish especially to recall to you one 

 of Linne's disciples, the explorer Pelir Kalm, professor of botany at the 

 University of Abo in Finland. He was very highly esteemed by his great 

 teacher. In Linne's list of the naturalists of his time, in which each one 

 was distinguished with a certain rank, Linn^ himself was general, and Kalm 

 had the rank of major. Commissioned by the Royal Swedish Academy 

 of Sciences, Kalm, as is well known, traveled far into North America, and 

 afterwards published an uncommonly accurate and minute account of his 

 observations, which was translated into several languages. He penetrated 

 into what was then considered the Far West, to the Lake of Ontario ; and 

 it was through his letters to Benjamin Franklin, in which Kalm with his 

 usual minuteness described the Falls of Niagara, that this great wonder of 

 nature first became more generally known. 



What a lapse of time has passed since that visit of the disciple of Linne 

 to North x\merica! — a time measured more properly by the wonderful 

 development of civilization than by the number of years that have gone by. 

 Over this vast continent, where then were forests and prairies, the abodes of 

 the wild Indian, has the white man now built his homes, and it is strewn 

 with schools in which the children learn to designate the plants and animals 

 with the names given them by Linne. Everywhere there are universities 

 in which the study of natural science is carried on with the aid of means 

 and appliances which Linne never could have dreamed of. Where Kalm, 

 at the mouth of the Hudson River, found a town v>'hich he says was then 

 "about half as big again as Gothenburg in Sweden," lies now one of the 

 greatest cities of the world; and in this city the two hundredth anniversary 

 of Linne is now celebrated in a way that shows that his memory is as much 

 honored there as in his fatherland. 



What a proof of his greatness, v/hat a guaranty that he will forever be 

 regarded as one of the master-minds of mankind! 



J. J. Sederholm. 

 Benj. Frosterus. 



Senaat der Rijks-Universiteit te Leiden. 



The Leiden University Senate has the honor to present its congratula- 

 tions to the New York Academy of Sciences on the occasion of the commem- 



