L I N 
lake near the town is remarkable for bleaching: twenty- 
four miles eaft-north-eaft of Glafgow, and eighteen weft 
of Edinburgh. Lat. 55. 59. N. Ion. 3. 38. W. 
LIN'LITHGOWSHIRE, or West Lothian, a coun¬ 
ty of Scotland, bounded on the north by the Frith of 
Forth, on the eaft and fouth-eaft by Edinburghlhire, on 
the fouth-weft by Lanerkihire, and on the north-welt by 
Stirlinglhire ; about feventeen miles long, and eight in its 
mean breadth. In general it is pleafant, abounding with 
corn and paftures, and produces coals, lime-ltone, iron, 
and fait, with plenty of filh from the rivers and frith. In 
this county Severus’s wall began, which extended acrofs 
this part of Scotland. Its principal towns are Linlith¬ 
gow, Bathgate, and Borrowftonnefs, its principal feaport; 
and Queensferry, the ancient common paffage, at all times 
of tide, from Lothian to Fife. In 1811, the number of 
inhabitants was 19,4.51. 
LINNAi'A,^ [lo named by Gronovius, in honour of 
the celebrated Linnaus.~\ In botany, a genus of the clafs 
didynamia, order angiofperrnia, natural order of ag- 
gregatae, (caprifolite, JuJf.) The generic characters are 
—Calyx: perianthium de-uble; perianthium of the fruit 
inferior, four-leaved: the two oppolite leaflets very 
final I, acute ; the remaining two elliptic, concave, up¬ 
right, hifpid, embracing the germ, converging,- per¬ 
manent. Perianthium of the flower fuperior, one-leafed, 
five-parted, upright, narrow, lharp, equal. Corolla: 
ene-petalled, bell-fhaped, half-five-cleft, obtufe, fub- 
equal, twice as large as the calyx of the flower. Sta¬ 
mina : filaments four, awl-lhaped, inferted into the bot¬ 
tom of the corolla ; of which two are very fmall 5 the two 
neareft longer, but Ihorter than the corolla ; antherae com- 
prefled, verfatile. Piftillum: germ roundifh, inferior; 
ftyle filiform, ltraight, length of the corolla, declinate ; 
ftigma globofe. Pericarpium : berry juicelefs, ovate, 
three-celled, covered by the hifpid glutinous perianthium 
of the fruit, deciduous. Seeds: two, roundifh.— EJfen- 
tial CkaraBcr. Calyx double, of the fruit two-leaved, of 
the flower five-parted, fuperior; corolla bell-fhaped; 
berry dry, three-celled. 
Linnsea borealis, or two-flowered linnaea, a Angle fpe- 
cies. Root perennial, fibrous. Stems filiform, from three 
to fix feet long, loofe, creeping, round, perennial, ferru¬ 
ginous, with a few white hairs fcattered over them. 
Leaves oppofite, roundifh-ovate, fpreading, attenuated 
into the petioles, with two or three ferratures on each fide, 
having a few upright hairs on the upper furface, and only 
on the midrib in the lower. Branches Ample, upright, 
with fix or eight leaves on them. Perianthium of the 
fruit ovate, a little lefs than the germ, ciliate, the cilias 
pellucid, bent outwards; it has fhort hairs fcattered all 
over it, terminated by a yellow globular gland ; germ 
ovate, with glandular hairs. Perianthium of the flower 
five-parted, upright, ciliate with pale hairs, and having 
glandular hairs fcattered about it; the calycine fegments 
lanceolate-awl-fhaped ; corolla turbinate, three times as 
long as the calyx, ftnooth and white on the outfide, hav¬ 
ing a few hairs fcattered over it within, with blood-red 
veins within the cavity, which are yellow on the lower 
fide: ftigma hifpid. The fmell of the flowers approaches 
to that of Ulmaria, or meadow-fw’eet; and is fo ftrong dur¬ 
ing the night as to difcover this little plant at a confider- 
able diftance. In Sweden, where the plant is common, an 
infulion of the leaves in milk is employed in the rheu- 
raatifm. In Norway, they cure the itch with a decoCtion 
of it. And in Oltro Bothnia they apply it in a cataplafm 
or by fomentation to diforders of the feet in flieep. 
Native of dry ftony mo fly ancient fir-woods, in Sweden, 
Siberia, Ruffia, Swiiferland, Scotland, and North Ame¬ 
rica; flowering in May and June. Linnaeus defcribes it 
in his Lapland Tour, as clothing mafl’es of ftones, being 
interwoven with ivy, in a piCtureique manner; and he 
feems to have chofen it himfelf to commemorate his own 
name, when he gathered it at Lykfele, May 29, 1732. 
Former boianifts had called this elegant and lingular little 
LIN 751 
plant Campanula ferpyllifolia ; but Linnteus, prosecuting 
the ftudy of vegetables on the only certain principles, the 
ftruClure of their parts of fructification, foon found this 
to conftitute a new genus. He referved the idea in his 
own breaft, till his difcoveries and publications had enti- 1 
tied him to botanical commemoration, and his friend Gro¬ 
novius, in due time, undertook to make this genus known 
to the world. It was publifhed by Linnaeus himfelf in 
the Genera Plantarum, in 1737, and the fame year in the 
Flora Lapponica, with a plate, being moreover mentioned 
in the Critica Botanica, p. So, as “an humble, defpifed,and 
neglected, Lapland plant, flowering at an early age,” like the 
perfon whofe name it bears. It was firft difcovered in Bri¬ 
tain, June 2d, 1795, by the late profeffor James Beattie of 
Aberdeen, in an old fir-wood at Mearns in that county. 
The plant having thus become interelfing to the lovers of 
fcience, we have given a reprefentation of it on the an¬ 
nexed Plate. 
LINNiE'US (Charles), the rnoft eminent naturalift of 
his age, and the founder of modern botan)', was born in 
1707 at Rafhult, in the province of Smaland, in Sweden, 
where his father refided as afliftant minifter of the parifh 
of Stenbrohult, to which the hamlet of Rafhult belongs, 
and became in procefs of time its paftor or reCtor; hav¬ 
ing married Chriftina Broderfon, the daughter of his pre- 
decelfor. The fubjedt of our memoir was their firft-bom 
child. The family of Linnaeus had been peafants, but 
fome of them, early in the 17th century, bad followed li¬ 
terary purfuits. In the beginning of that century regu¬ 
lar and hereditary furnames were firft adopted in Sweden* 
on which occafion literary men often chofe one of Latin or 
Greek derivation and ItruCture, retaining the termination, 
proper to the learned languages. A remarkable linden- 
tree, Tilia europaea, growing near the place of their refi- 
dence, is reported to have given origin to the names of 
Lindelius and Tiliander, in fome branches of this family; 
but the above-mentioned Nicholas, when he went into 
orders, is faid to have firft taken that of Linnaeus, by 
which his fon became fo extenfively known. Of the tafte 
which laid the foundation of his happinefs as well as his 
celebrity, this worthy father was the primary caufe. Re- 
fiding in a delightful fpot, on the banks of a fine lake, fur- 
rounded by hills and valleys, woods and cultivated ground, 
his garden and his fields yielded him both amufement and 
profit; and his infant fon imbibed, under his aufpices, that 
pure and ardent love of nature for its own fake, with that 
habitual exercife of the mind in obfervation and activity, 
which ever after marked His chara&er; and which were 
enhanced by a reCtitude of principle, an elevation of de¬ 
votional tafte, a warmth of feeling, and an amiablenefs of 
manners, rarely united in thofe who fo tranfcendently ex¬ 
cel in any branch of philofophy or fcience, becaule the 
cultivation of the heart does by no means fo conftantly 
as it ought keep pace with that of the underftanding. 
The maternal uncle of Nicholas Linnaeus, Sueno Tilian¬ 
der, who had educated him with his own children, was 
alfo fond of plants and of gardening, fo that thefe taftes 
were in fome meafure hereditary. The young Charles, as 
he tells us himfelf, was no fooner out of his cradle, than,, 
lre almolt lived in his father’s garden. He was lcarcely 
four years old when he heard his father defcant, to a ru¬ 
ral party, on the diftinCtions and qualities of fome parti¬ 
cular plants, culled from the flowery turf on which they 
were leafed ; and this firft botanical leCture was ever af¬ 
ter remembered as an epocha in his fcientific life. He 
never ceafed to enquire of hisfather concerning the names 
and properties of all the productions of the garden and 
the fields, that he could poliibly procure; nor did the eco¬ 
nomy of infeCts, even at this early period, efcape his at¬ 
tention. His youthful inaptitude for retaining the names 
of natural objects fometimes tired and difpleafed his in- 
ftruCtor, whole wholefome authority in time corrected this 
defeCt, and perhaps early prevented his falling into the er¬ 
ror of thofe defultory {'peculators of nature, who have 
agreed to defpife that methodical and didactic precifioa 
