46 .JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



to begin the practice of his profession, and in 1739 married a Miss 

 Morseus, to whom he had been long engaged, but whom he had 

 previously been prevented marrying by his straitened circumstances. 

 Soon after he was appointed to fill the chair of natural history in 

 the Upsal University, and his great fame and extensive correspond- 

 ence enabled him to enrich the academic gardens with an mimense 

 variety ot plants. Jussieu and Van Royen sent him those of India, 

 Haller and Ludwig European ones, and Collinson and Catesby 

 specimens from the New World, while his pupils Thunberg, Hassel- 

 quest, Kalm, Osbeck and others gave him details and material from 

 their travels in Europe, Asia, Africa ' and America. Riches' now 

 flowed rapidly in upon hmi, and in 1757 he was elevated to the 

 nobility, taking the title of Von Linne'. This speedy rise to wealth 

 and honors did not, however, in anywise diminish his assiduity in 

 study, and an extraordinary number of works were completed in 

 various departments of natural history, all evincing the same clear- 

 ness of ideas and precision of language which have made his writings 

 so especially valuable. Toward the close of his life, Linnaeus, who 

 for many years had enjoyed excellent health, was attacked by apo- 

 plexy, which, in some degree, impaired his mental powers. The 

 first attack occurred in 1776. In the succeeding year he had a 

 second stroke, and, after a lingering illness, died on the loth of Jan- 

 uary, 1778, in the seventy-first year of his age. A general mourn- 

 ing of the nation followed, while the king, Gustavus IIL, in a speech 

 trom the throne, alluded to his death as a public calamity, and 

 ordered a medal to be struck expressive of the national grief at his 

 loss. ']"he best idea of the marvellous ability of this great man is 

 gained from the title by which he has been honored by the scien- 

 tific world, a far prouder one than any mere hereditary distinction, 

 that of " Prince of Naturalists." 



Linnaeus' greatest work, the " Species Plantarum," which Haller 

 has emphatically termed " Maximum opus et aeternum," appeared 

 in 1753. To this all his other botanical productions were in some 

 measure only preparatory. 



The Linnsean or Sexual System is, briefly, as follows. All 

 known plants are divided into twenty-four classes, the characters of 

 which are formed on the number, or difference in situation or arrange- 

 ment, of the stamens. The names assigned to these classes are of 

 Greek derivation, and express their several distinctions, e. g., Mon- 



