io 6 [Proc. B.N.F.C., 



" A CHAT ABOUT LINNE." 



The President (Rev. Canon Lett, M.A., M.R.I.A.), delivered 

 his Presidential Address during the evening, the subject being 

 "A Chat about Linne," in the course of which he said it had 

 been the fashion for some time to ignore the work of the great 

 botanist Linne, whose efforts had formed the foundation of our 

 present-day knowledge of plants and all that concerns them. The 

 name of this great man was Carl Linne, which by the prevailing 

 custom of the learned of those times was changed into Carolus 

 Linnaeus. He was born in 1707 in Rashult, in Sweden, and died 

 in 1778. His father, a Swedish pastor, wished him eventually to 

 become a minister, but his love of botany stood seriously in the 

 way, his time being chiefly occupied in collecting and examining 

 plants and in reading on botanical subjects. His parents, being 

 greatly disappointed, actually thought of apprenticing him to a 

 tailor or shoemaker. A Dr. Rothuram, perceiving the lad's 

 fitness for science, took him into his own house to prepare him 

 for the medical profession. At the age of twenty he went up to 

 the University of Lund. He next removed to the University of 

 Upsala, but soon Linne found himself in dire poverty; his parents 

 were too poor to help him, and he could not find pupils. Having 

 referred to the meeting in the Autumn of 1729 of the poorly-clad 

 student with Dr. Celsius, who invited the co-operation of Linne 

 on his famous treatise on the plants of the Bible, and gave him 

 the full use of his library, the President dealt with Linne's 

 appointment as deputy to the aged professor of botany, Dr. 

 Rudbeck. Great success attended his lectures in botany at 

 Upsala, which unfortunately excited the jealousy of certain 

 members of the University, and in 1732 rendered his position so 

 unbearable that he accepted the invitation of the Academy of 

 Sciences of Upsala to visit Lapland for the purpose of examining 

 the natural productions of that country. This journey occupied 

 six months, and he passed through many risks and dangers, and 

 on his return published an account of his visit, with lists and 



