6 THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



to have used the Linnaean system in the study of plants. 

 Dr. Benjamin Franklin introduced Bartram to European 

 botanists, among them Doctor Gronovius, who presented the 

 Quaker botanist with Linnseus's Systema Naturae of 1740.* 

 The overwhelming influence of the great Linnseus gave to 

 the botany of the eighteenth century an almost exclusively 

 systematic and descriptive character. Linnaeus was the 

 author of the binomial system of nomenclature of plants 

 and animals, which still goes back to his w^ork as its basis, 

 and of the artificial "sexual system" of classification 

 based on the stamens and pistils of the flowering plants, 

 whose functions, as reproductive organs, were already 

 realized. The order which he brought out of the chaos of 

 descriptive natural history was a blessing so unalloyed, 

 and his system was so simple and seductive, that it was 

 many years before most botanists again began to realize 

 that their science properly comprehends other problems 

 than those involved in naming and pigeon-holing plants. 



It was while the Linnaean enthusiasm was at its height 

 that the first Philadelphia botanists appeared on the scene. 



In the year 1748, Peter Kalm, a Swedish naturalist, and 

 pupil of Linnaeus, visited Pennsylvania and spent three 

 years in exploring America, and in 1753 published his 

 travels.f Doctor Adam Kuhn, of Philadelphia, was proba- 



*1740. LiNN^us — Systema naturce, in quo naturce regna trio, secundum 

 classes, ordines, genera, species systematice proponuntur Editio II auctior. Stock- 

 holmicB, Gottfr. Kiesewetter. 



Bartram's copy of this book is in possession of the Pennsylvania Historical 

 Society ; on the title page is the writing : 



"John Bartram His booke sent to him by Dr. Gronovlus in ye year 1746." 



That It is authentic is shown by the following, also written in the book : " I 

 bought this book June 14, 1853, at the sale at Mackey's of Books of Col. Carr, who 

 married Bartram's grand-daughter." E. D, Ingraham. " I bought this book March 

 20, 1855, at the sale of Mr. Ingraham's Library by M. Thomas & Sons." A. Day. 



1 1753-61. P. Kalm— £"« Resa til Norra America. Stockholm, III vols. 



1754-64. Kalm— Beschreibung der Reise nach dem nordlichen Amerika. 

 Gottingen. 3 Theile (German translation). 



I 



