318 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



His principal work is entitled Plantarum minus cognitanun 

 centuria, 1 — 5, St Petersburg, 1728 to 1740. 



Northern Asia was traversed during ten years, at the com- 

 mand of the Empress Anna, chiefly by John George Gmelin. 

 He died 1755. His Flora Sibirica, in four volumes, St Peters- 

 burg 1747 to 1769, contains a multitude of the most remark- 

 able and rare plants. 



John Burmann, professor at Amsterdam, who died 1780, 

 made use of the collections of other travellers in his Thesau- 

 rus Zeylandicus, Amsterdam 1737, and in his Rariorum Af- 

 ricanum Plantarum, dec. 1 — 10, Amsterdam 1734 to 1769. 



A magnificent v/ork of Marcus Catesby, on the Floras of 

 the southerQ provinces of North America, the Natural His- 

 tory of Carolina, &c. was published in two volumes, Lon* 

 don 1731 and 1743. 



V. The Lmncean Period. 

 455. 



Charles Linne gave their new form to all the parts of Na- 

 tural History ; but he deserves to be in a peculiar sense call- 

 ed the Founder of the Historical Part ; for he first regulated 

 the artificial language, — fixed the laws of Classification, — 

 unfolded the generic characters, — was the first to settle the 

 idea of species, — invented trivial names and specific charac- 

 ters. He enriched the science of plants by a more exact in- 

 vestigation of exotic Floras, and by a more sure determina- 

 tion of some thousand new species discovered by others. In 

 the last place, he formed a system, the value of which has 

 been already estimated, (133.) If we were disposed to find 

 fault with him and with his system, we might derive occasion 

 from his neglect of microscopical examinations, — from his su- 

 perficial study of Cryptogamous plants, — from his giving too 

 little attention to the anatomy and physiology of plants, — 

 and from the following circumstances : That he often exhi- 

 bited in a defective manner the characters of the southern 

 plants, owing to the want of actual inspection ; — that he set 



