BICENTENARY OF LINN^US 73 



As the parent of all societies calling themselves by the name Poljlechnic, 

 and having from its birth, in 1832, consistently adhered to the purpose of 

 its founders, viz., — the encouragement of science, as well as the fine and 

 industrial arts, — the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society offers its congratu- 

 lations to its fellow-workers in the domain of science in the great city of New 

 York, on the practical and comprehensive character of the commemorative 

 exercises which their enterprise and wisdom have projected for the interesting 

 occasion falling on May 23 next. It trusts nothing will occur to prevent 

 each function from realization in a manner befitting the memory of so great 

 a benefactor to natural science, and fully sustaining the prestige of one of the 

 foremost of the learned societies in America. 



While leaving it to societies of wider renown to express the world's 

 indebtedness and gratitude to Carl von Linn6, who has been truly styled 

 "the father of modern systematic natural history," and who v,^as the founder 

 of the now universally adopted binominal system of scientific nomenclature, 

 the Royal Cornwall Poljlechnic Society cannot, on this historic occasion, 

 refrain from recording its own appreciation of the work accomplished by 

 one who, though a distinguished son of Sweden, belongs, by virtue of his 

 brilliant achievements, to every land and people. 



The careful and far-reaching character of the investigations of Carl 

 von Linne probably stand without parallel in the annals of science. Sur- 

 rounded in early life by conditions which would have deterred most men, 

 genius and a whole-hearted enthusiasm for the pursuit of knowledge in a 

 direction where he was destined subsequently to hold a position which, 

 after the lapse of two hundred years, is still unique, his clear insight, added 

 to his almost incomparable faculty for dealing with vast accumulations of 

 material, enabled him, after years of constant devotion to his self-imposed 

 task, to evolve cosmos out of chaos. The foundation which he laid for the 

 determination of genera and species was the soundest that science had been 

 invited to adopt, and on it succeeding generations have reared a noble 

 structure. 



What the New York Academy of Sciences has been able to accomplish, 

 what the Royal Cornwall Pohi;echnic Society has done for the encourage- 

 ment of the many branches of natural science, v/hat is being done by kin- 

 dred societies all the world over, has been made possible through the new 

 era which was ushered in by the publication of the numerous erudite works 

 from the pen of him to whom all nations are now paying homage. 



To-day we think of the student whose indomitable courage enabled him 

 to triumph over difficulties of the most trying kind, and to fill his appointed 

 niche in human affairs; of the man whose life was so devout that his first 

 sight of an English furze-bush, arrayed in all its golden splendor, was to 



