C, Lapworth — Life of Dr. J. O. Linnarsson. 3 



in 1869 throngli tlie prolific Lower Paleeozoic regions of Bohemia 

 and the Baltic Provinces. In 1872 and 1873 he acted as Professor of 

 Geology and Mineralogy in his mother University of Upsala. In 

 1873 also he visited the Congress of Naturalists at Copenhagen. In 

 1875 he was promoted to the dignity of Geologist upon the Govern- 

 ment Survey, and in this capacity he devoted all his energies for the 

 last six years to the investigation of the stratigraphy of the Lower 

 Paleeozoic Succession in Scania, Smaland, Westrogothia, Ostrogothia, 

 Delarne, Jemtland, as well as that of the islands of Gothland and 

 Oland, and of various portions of Norway. He was a member of the 

 Geological Society of Stockholm, and filled the office of Assistant- 

 Secretary during the years 1872 and 1876. He was made Secretary 

 in 1877, and held the post until the 3rd of February, 1881, when he 

 voluntai'ily relinquished it. He died at Skofde, Westrogothia, on 

 the 19th of September, 1881. 



Linnarsson's bodily constitution appears to have been but a weak 

 one at the best ; and for seveml years before his death he was a 

 victim to the wasting disease of the lungs which finally caused his 

 death. His sufferings were borne throughout with manly resigna- 

 tion and uncomplaining fortitude. Year by year, as the shoi't 

 Swedish summer came round, and the sunny season promised 

 delightful days to the geologist in the field, a fresh attack of the 

 old complaint tore him away from the work he loved, to stagnate in 

 painful inaction in various sanatoria. But even there his cheerful 

 hopefulness never seems to have deserted him. Some of the most 

 kindly and delightful letters I ever received from him are dated from 

 the Sanatorium of Gausdal in the Norwegian Highlands. In truth, 

 his intense scientific ardour gave his body but little real rest. His 

 mind and pen were never idle, and at the least sign of renewed 

 health he hurried to the field to his duties again. Absorbed in the 

 keen delights of his original research, rewarded, as it always was, 

 with almost instant and brilliant discovery, Linnarsson seems never 

 to have adequately realized the deadly nature of his disease. His 

 enthusiastic mind overbore and overtasked the weakly frame, and in 

 the keen ardour of the scientific chase, the proper precautions for 

 the bodily rest and refreshment seem to have been often overlooked 

 and forgotten. When we recollect the disheartening and prostrating 

 effects of these repeated attacks of illness, at the only period of the 

 year when field-work was possible, the remarkable scientific 

 successes he achieved during the last ten years, and the vast amount 

 of intellectual labour he must have accomplished, appear little short 

 of miraculous. In August of the present year he was compelled to 

 pay his usual visit to the sanatorium at Gausdal. Feeling, as he 

 imagined, greatly improved in health, he ventured to return, on the 

 1st of September, to the scene of his geological labours in Ostro- 

 gothia. Here, the weakly invalid, intent upon his loved pursuit, 

 forgot, as usual, the deadly risks he ran. After exhausting himself 

 in field-work during the day, he was forced to rough it at night in a 

 miserable country inn, during the height of the rainy season. The 

 result was inevitable. The old complaint returned with tenfold 



