QO ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



such great gulfs of space and time as those which separate the sage of 

 Upsala from the naturalists of the Rocky Mountains, the lands of the 

 midnight sun from the dome of the North American Continent, the dawn 

 of the eighteenth from that of the twentieth century ! 



In common with the rest of the scientific world, we are greatly indebted 

 to him who initiated the modern system of a concise and descriptive nomen- 

 clature, to him who found "biology a chaos, and left it a cosmos," and to 

 him who made it possible for finite minds to grasp the thoughts of the Infinite 

 in the world of life. 



Colorado is especially indebted to Linnaeus from the fact that, owing to 

 the general similarity of our Alpine flora to the plants of the Scandinavian 

 Alps, a large portion of our mountain plants was originally described by the 

 father of botany, and so well classified and described, that the notoriety- 

 seeking, hair-splitting species-makers do not venture to meddle with the 

 work of the master hand. 



We are proud of the fact that on the snowy summits of our higher peaks 

 grows in abundance the tiny pink-tipped flower which the innate modesty 

 of the true savant led him to select from all the wealth of the floral world to 

 perpetuate his name in coming generations. 



G. L. Cannon, President. 



