Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/90

80 England, and commenced practice in Stockholm, where he lectured 0:1 botany aud mineralogy. He finally became professor of botany at Upsal, and was one of the most popular lecturers of the day. He died on the 8th of January 1778, in the 71st year of his age. His herbarium is now in the possession of the Linnean Society. One of his biographers, in summing up his merits, says, &quot; Educated in the severe school of adversity, accustomed from his earliest youth to put a high value on verbal accu racy and logical precision, endowed with a powerful understanding, and capable of undergoing immense fatigue, both of body and mind, Linnaeus produced a most impor tant revolution in botanical science. He improved the distinctions of genera and species, introduced a better nomenclature on the binomial method, and invented a new and comprehensive system founded on the stamens and pistils. His verbal accuracy and the remarkable terseness of his technical language reduced the crude matter that was stored up in the folios of his predecessors into a form which was accessible to all men. He separated with singu lar skill the important from the unimportant in their descriptions. He arranged their endless synonyms with a patience and a lucid order that were quite inimitable. By requiring all species to be capable of a rigorous defini tion, not exceeding twelve words, he purified botany from the endless varieties of the gardeners and herbalists ; and by applying the same strict principles to genera, and reducing every character to its differential terms, he got rid of the cumbrous descriptions of the old writers. It is said of Linnaeus, that, although no man of science ever exercised a greater sway, or had more enthusiastic admirers, yet his merit was not so much that of a discoverer as of a judicious and strenuous reformer. The knowledge which he displayed, and the value and simplicity of the improve ments which he proposed, secured the universal adoption of his suggestions, and crowned him with a success alto gether unparalleled in the annals of science.&quot; The system of Linnaeus is founded on the sexes of plants, and hence it is often denominated the sexual system. It is called an artificial method, because it takes into account only a few marked characters in plants, and does not pro pose to unite them by natural affinities. It is an index to a department of the book of nature, and as such is useful to the student. It does not aspire to any higher character, and although it cannot be looked upon as a scientific and natural arrangement, still it has a certain facility of appli cation which commends it to the tyro. In using it, how ever, let it ever be remembered, that it will not of itself give the student any view of the true relations of plants as regards structure and properties, and that by leading to the discovery of the name of a plant, it is only a stepping- stone to the natural system. Linnaeus himself claimed nothing higher for it. He says&quot; Methodi Naturalis frag- menta studiose inquirerida sunt. Primuin et ultimum hoc in botanicis desideratum est. Natura non facit saltus. Plantoe omnes utrinque affinitatem monstrant, uti terri- torium in mappa geographical Accordingly, besides his artificial index, he also promulgated fragments of a natural method of arrangement. The Linuean system was strongly supported by Sir James Edward Smith, who adopted it in his English Flora, and who also became possessor of the Linnean collec tion. The system was for a long time the only one taught in the schools of Britain, even after it had been discarded by^ those in France and in other Continental countries. The foundation of Botanic Gardens during the IGth and 17th centuries did much in the way of advancing botany. They were at first appropriated chiefly to the cultivation of medicinal plants. This was especially the case ut universities, where medical schools existed. The first Botanic Garden was established at Padua in 1545, and was followed by that of Pisa. The garden at Leyden dates from 1577, that at Leipsic from 1579. Gardens also early existed at Florence and Bologna. The Mont- pellier Garden was founded in 1592, that of Giessen in 1G05, of Strasburg in 1620, of Altorf in 1G25, and of Jena in 1G29. The Jardin des Plantes at Paris was established in 1626, and the Upsal Garden in 1627. The Botanic Garden at Oxford was founded in 1632. The garden at Edinburgh was founded by Sir Andrew Balfour and Sir Robert Sibbald in 1G70, and, under the name of the Physic Garden, was placed under the superintendence of James Sutherland, afterwards professor of botany in the university. The park and garden ab Kew date from about 1730. The garden of the Koyal Dublin Society at Glas- nevin was opened about 1796; that of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1807; and that of Glasgow in 1818. The Madrid Garden dates from 1763, and that of Coimbra from 1773. Gesner states that at the end of the 18th century there were 1600 Botanic Gardens in Europe. A new era dawned on botanical classification when Antoiue Laurent de Jussieu appeared. He was born at Lyons in 1748, and was educated at Paris under the care of his uncle, Bernard de Jussieu. At an early age he became botanical demonstrator in the Jardin des Plantes, and was thus led to devote his time to the science of botany. Being called upon to arrange the plants in the garden, he necessarily had to consider the best method of doing so, and adopted a system founded in a certain degree on that of Ray, in which he embraced all the discoveries in organography, adopted the simplicity of the Linnean definitions, and displayed the natural affinities of plants. His Genera Plantarum, begun in 1778, and finally pub lished in 1789, indicated an important advance in the principle of classification. Jussieu subsequently became professor of rural botany; he died in 1836 at the age of 88. The system of Jussieu made its way slowly in Great Britain, and it was not until Robert Brown brought it under notice that it was adopted. It is now the basis of all natural classifications. One of the early supporters of this natural method was Augustin Pyrame De Candolle, who was born in 1778, and who, after attending the lectures of Vaucher at Geneva, devoted himself to botanical pursuits. He subsequently prosecuted his studies at Paris, and lectured on botany at the College of France. He commenced his publications in 1802, and in 1804 he pro mulgated his Elementary Principles of Botany. In 1807 he became professor of botany at Montpellier, and in 1816 he was appointed to the chair of natural history at Geneva, with the charge of the Botanic Garden. In that city he carried on his future botanical labours, and began his Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Veyetabilis, which was intended to embrace an arrangement and description of all known plants. He was enabled to complete eight volumes of the work before his death, and it has since been carried on by his son Alphonso De CandolJe, with the aid of other eminent botanists. It now embraces descriptions of the genera and species of Dicotyledonous plants. The system followed by De Candolle is a modification of that of Jussieu, and it is adopted more or less at the present day. De Can- dolle s own herbarium was extremely rich. He had visited and carefully examined many of the most exten sive collections, especially those of Paris ; and many entire collections, as well as separate families, on which he was specially engaged, were from time to time submit ted to his examination by their possessors. He had thus 