HARDWI CKE ' S S CIENCE- G SSI P. 



149 



than those of the Bargate pebble-beds,* for the more 

 the greensand sea encroached on the old shore-line, 

 the older the rocks would be, seeing that the 

 Devonian rocks were reached at Meux's, and the 

 Silurian rise to the north of them, and were reached 

 by a boring at Ware, at which place the upper 

 silurian occurs almost immediately below the gault, 

 the lower greensand being represented by a thin 

 stratum of carstone on])'. 



It now only remains to account for the presence of 

 the extraneous fossils. Any geological map will 

 show how the greensand rests on the oolites to the 

 north west, and I am disposed to believe that all our 

 extraneous fossils are derived from these beds, and 

 not from triassic or liassic rocks, there being no 

 conclusive evidence of these last-named rocks having 

 formed any part of the coast-line of the greensand 

 sea. 



LINN/E US. y^&jf 



CHARLES KINGSLEY called Linnaeus a 

 sound-headed man, and Bulwer Lytton said 

 he had the genius of sincerity : he was, moreover, 

 one of the few enthusiasts who, by dint of hard 

 practical work, brought all his dreams to their fulfil- 

 ment. He held no impossible theories, no high- 

 flown fancies, and his " Systema Naturae," published 

 in 1735, is, in its essential characters, the same as 

 that adopted in the present day. It remains, despite 

 the rapid march of science, the foundation of all 

 other botanical systems, and, although subject to the 

 development of new arrangements, must always con- 

 tinue of the greatest value to beginners. This work, 

 which he vainly endeavoured to place to any advan- 

 tage at Amsterdam, was finally printed by a Leyden 

 doctor at his own expense. It is now a bibliothecal 

 curiosity, consisting of eight sheets in the form of 

 tables, and contains a view of the animal, vegetable, 

 and mineral kingdoms, the germ of that scheme of 

 natural history adopted afterwards throughout the 

 world. 



If we had nothing else to thank him for, we should 

 owe him a deep debt of gratitude for making a clean 

 sweep of long unpronounceable Latin words, sound- 

 ing, as a writer of the time declared, like a conjuration 

 of hobgoblins. By applying simple names to plants 

 founded on the essential character of every species, 

 Linnaeus facilitated for all time the study of botany. 



His treatise on its first appearance provoked the 

 severest opposition. He had written what he knew 

 to be the truth, without the least idea of managing 



! * It mast be acknowledged that some of the specimens from 

 the Bargate beds of St. Martha's Hill assimulate more with 

 the pebbles from Tangley, than with those of the pebble beds 

 around Godalming ; but then it must be borne in mind that 

 the pebbles of St. Martha's are dispersed among the Bargate, 

 and are not so decidedly below the Bargate as around Godal- 

 ming, and therefore may very well be of an intermediate 

 character. 



the susceptibilities of his predecessors. " Botanists," 

 he said, " have hitherto wholly neglected the language 

 of their science. More than a thousand names have 

 been changed and introduced since Tournefort'stime. 

 What right have I to change them ? — because they 

 are not founded on proper grounds and definite laws. 

 Our successors in the republic of botany will ulti- 

 mately cease to give implicit credence to the authority 

 of the ancients." The maze of ancient names, he 

 frequently remarked, resembles a chaos, the mother 

 of which was ignorance, the father custom, and the 

 godfather prejudice. 



To those who care to trace the influence of early 

 surroundings on individual character and talent, a 

 visit to the little village of Rashult in Smaland, a 

 province of South Sweden, the birthplace of Carl 

 Linnaeus, would be interesting. The trimness and 

 cleanliness of its wooden houses, its white-boarded 

 floors, its rich variety of vegetation, its simplicity 

 and charm, will not be thought of little importance 

 in the formation of temperament and predilections. 

 From the time he could stand the young Carl almost 

 lived in his father's garden, planted with rare shrubs 

 and flowers. Nicholas Linnaeus was passionately 

 fond of gardening, and the child, as soon as he could 

 speak, was encouraged to ask the name of every 

 plant he saw, although he would forget it directly 

 after. This became such a habit that his father at 

 last refused to answer him until he should have 

 shown some disposition to remember what he was 

 told. 



At eight years old he began to make a botanical 

 garden on a piece of ground given him for his own. 

 It was on an independent plan, and he would bring 

 in weeds and wild flowers much to his own content, 

 but hardly beneficial to the adjacent ground, culti- 

 vated chiefly for profit. At ten he was sent to the 

 grammar-school, or " trivial school," as it was called, 

 at Wexio ; but his progress there was anything but 

 satisfactory ; his extraordinary talent was by no 

 means recognised, and he was looked upon as an 

 idle boy who only cared to escape work and wander 

 about according to his own will and pleasure. At 

 sixteen he had formed a small library of botanical 

 books, and his plant-lore was well known to his 

 school-fellows ; but by his tutors he was given up as 

 a hopeless dunce. When this report reached the 

 good pastor and his wife, their surprise was equal to 

 their disappointment, for they had had no doubt of 

 his abilities, and intended him to follow in his 

 father's footsteps, and devote himself to a clerical 

 life. 



This he could never be induced to do. In his 

 diary, which he wrote as if it were the history of 

 some ideal person, he describes this unsatisfactory 

 state of affairs : "The father came to Wexio hoping 

 to hear from the preceptors a very flattering account 

 of his beloved son's progress in studies and morals : 

 bat things happened quite differently, for although 



