4 ESS A YS. 



that they have fallen to the lot of the " toto disjunctos orbe 

 Britannos " ; yet a journey even from Landshut to London 

 may perhaps be more readily performed than to Upsal. 



After the death of Sir James Edward Smith the herbarium 

 and the other collections, and library of Linnaeus, as well as 

 his own, were purchased by the Linnaean Society. The herba- 

 rium still occupies the cases which contained it at Upsal, and 

 is scrupulously preserved in its original state, except that, for 

 more effectual protection from the black penetrating dust of 

 London, it is divided into parcels of convenient size, which 

 are closely wrapped in covers of strong paper lined with mus- 

 lin. The genera and covers are numbered to correspond with 

 a complete manuscript catalogue, and the collection, which is 

 by no means large in comparison with modern herbaria, may 

 be consulted with great facility. 



In the negotiation with Smith, Dr. Acrel stated the num- 

 ber of species as 8000, which probably is not too low an esti- 

 mate. The specimens, which are mostly small, but in excellent 

 preservation, are attached to half-sheets of very ordinary 

 paper, of the foolscap size 1 (which is now considered too 

 small), and those of each genus covered by a double sheet, in 

 the ordinary manner. The names are usually written upon 

 the sheet itself, with a mark or an abbreviation to indicate the 

 source from which the specimen was derived. Thus those 

 from the Upsal garden are marked H. U., those given by 

 Kalm, iT., those received from Gronovius, Gron., etc. The 

 labels are all in the handwriting of Linnaeus himself, except 

 a few later ones by the son, and occasional notes by Smith, 

 which are readily distinguished, and indeed are usually desig- 

 nated by his initials. By far the greater part of the North 

 American plants which are found in the Linnaean herbarium 

 were received from Kalm, or raised from seeds collected by 



1 Upon this subject Dr. Acrel, giving an account of the Linnsean col- 

 lections, thus writes to Smith: " Ut vero vir illustrissimus, dum vixit, 

 nihil ad ostentationem habuit, omnia vero sua in usum accommodata ; ita 

 etiam in hoc herbario, quod per XL. annos sedulo collegit, frustra qusesi- 

 veris papyri insignia ornamenta, margines inauratas, et cet. quae ostenta- 

 tionis gratia in omnibus fere herbariis nunc vulgaria sunt." 



