868 
LINNAEUS 
ception of system. Here too he subjected the 
statements of older authors to careful criticism, and 
numerous are the mistakes which he rectified, the 
extravagances which he pruned. The boundaries of 
knowledge were extended by his descriptions of a 
most important multitude of previously unknown 
forms, from the most widely separated tracts. An 
instance may be made of the removal of the whales 
from the fishes to a mammalian class, the employ¬ 
ment as a guide of the different structures of the 
teeth in classifying mammals, the forming of new 
bases for arranging reptiles, fishes, snails and 
mussels and their description, etc., while for know¬ 
ledge of animals, particularly insects and their 
habits of life, he made contributions of no small 
worth. 
Turning to minerals, it will be found that Linne 
took a most important place, especially by the system 
he introduced. That it has been superseded by a 
better, is a natural sequence of the marvellous de¬ 
velopments since his time; it made, however, a 
stepping-stone, without which present enquirers 
might not have reached their eminence. It must be 
emphasized that Linne’s views on the origin of 
crystals, and their application for the classification 
of minerals, has been regarded of such importance, 
that he has been styled the founder of crystal¬ 
lography. Geology also owes no small gratitude to 
him, especially by the astonishing accuracy of his 
reports on that science from various Swedish prov¬ 
inces. Thus, drawing a correct profile of Kinnekulle, 
he compared its strata with the corresponding strata 
elsewhere, and by accepting the existence over the 
entire globe of a certain succession of strata, which 
were formed in or from the ocean, he laid the 
foundations of the geological system which was 
afterwards put forward by the celebrated A. G. 
Werner. The true nature of petrifactions was not 
unknown to him. In place of regarding them as 
