ANECDOTES OF LINNA2US. 
Xlll 
•• The number of his new and important observa- 
tions in botany is very great. They are for the 
most part to be found in the collection of his aca- 
demical dissertations. He also took uncommon 
pains to finish his Ordines Natural a , or the natural 
affinity which subsists among the plants ; but not- 
withstanding the great extent of his exertions, those 
productions only remained fragments, and many 
plants still are left to which he could not assign a 
place in their natural order. I wished at the same 
time to get better acquainted with the distinctive 
marks of his natural classes and with his observa- 
tions upon them. He subjoined them finally, 
though with too much laconism, to the last edition 
of his Genera Plantarum, which was the result of 
some lectures he gave us in summer, in the country, 
upon the Natural Orders. 
“ These are his merits in botany, to which he 
gave a quite new appearance, and enriched with 
many valuable remarks. — ‘ If we make conjecture 
of the value of tho Linnasan method,’ says the cele- 
brated Hill in his Vegetable System, ‘ it will live, 
even when a natural method shall be found, as 
long as there is science.’ 
“ Linnaeus manifested tho same spirit of syste- 
matical order in the animal reign. He found it a 
real chaos, in which the infinite number of animals 
were confounded without characteristic distinction 
and without order. There had hardly been any 
regular and fixed classes introduced, at least not 
