BICENTENARY OF LINN^US 43 



toward the dissemination of education and civilization, from which Rome 

 greatly benefited. 



Napoleon upturned and readjusted the treasuries of a number of king- 

 doms, duchies, cloisters and churches in Europe; and, even though his 

 regime was attended by frightful loss of life, marked and permanent improve- 

 ment has followed it. But it was La Sage, a scientist, who compiled a 

 great work for Napoleon, from which he learned what noble families had 

 lived in all times, and what campaigns had been fought by the various 

 conquerors; and it was a thorough study of La Sage's work that had much 

 to do with giving Napoleon an idea as to what worlds others had conquered, 

 and what parts of this world were left for him to subdue. 



It may not be generally known that it was one of our New York scientists, 

 Dr. Melvil Dewey, w^io introduced the card catalogue system of catalo- 

 guing books, which led to the present system of keeping books by the loose- 

 leaf system. 



It would be easy to mention many who have materially assisted in the 

 advancement and organization of the multifarious affairs of mankind; but 

 the other and lower creations of nature outnumbered mankind many thou- 

 sand times, and the co-ordination of scientific nomenclature covering this 

 vast domain is due to the great Carl von Linne. Until his time, an animal 

 was known as a deer in English, a Hirsh in German, a cerf in French, and by 

 fifty other names in as many different languages. By applying two or three 

 words as a name to every creature that flies in the heavens above, that dwells 

 in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth, he made it possible 

 for the scientist, whether at the Cape of Good Hope, in Greenland, in New 

 York, or in the Sandwich Islands, to know not only just what living form 

 was referred to, but also to understand immediately to just what genus, 

 class, species or variety, this living organism belongs. 



The Linnaean system has also greatly aided scientific classification in 

 natural history, which, in connection with medicine, has given us the con- 

 necting link in the science of biology and bacteriology. The Linnaean 

 system compares with the natural history of to-day as alchemy does with 

 chemistry, as astrology and fortune-telling with astronomy and medicine of 

 the present time. 



It is strange that, as well-planned and admirable and successful as the 

 Linnfean system is when applied to the nomenclature of animate objects, 

 it was absolutely rejected by the then mineralogists and chemists, as the 

 chemical equivalents and the structure are frequently better expressed by a 

 single term than they would be by a binominal system. 



Had a Linnaean system existed when Adam and Eve were in the Garden 

 of Eden, there would be no dispute to-day as to whether the "apple" which 



