Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/358

340 at the university lie lectured not only on medicine, anatomy, and botany, to the latter of which branches he became as fondly devoted as he had been to anatomy, after his enthusiasm for the latter had waned, but also on physics, mechanics, mathematics, etc., and he also gave instruction in music. In addition to this comprehensive activity as a teacher, he was also engaged in many practical undertakings. Thus he built an anatomical hall for the university; laid out a botanical garden, and made 11,000 wood-cuts for an illustrated botanical work, which he had begun and which he called "Campi Elysii," or "Glysisvald," attempting to translate the Latin name into the terminology of Norse mythology. This great work was never completed, for in that conflagration which destroyed Upsala in 1702, his own house, with all its precious collections, became a prey to the flames. It may serve to illustrate the usefulness of this extraordinary man to mention that, during the fire, he quietly continued to direct the work of extinguishing the flames so as to save the university—whereby the library was rescued—though he had been informed that his own house was burning.

Rudbeck gained the greatest reputation among his contemporaries by his historical work "Atland eller Manhem," also called "Atlantika," a history of Sweden in antiquity. Until his fortieth year he had not occupied himself with historical studies, and was led into them for the first time by Verelius, who got him to prepare a map of Sweden for a historical work. In doing this he discovered, as he thought, to his great surprise, that the names and localities in Sweden bore a striking similarity to those of the mythic land Atlantis, in which Plato had located his ideal republic. Rudbeck seized on this thread, and with great learning and no less subtlety, but at the same time with the wildest freaks of the imagination, he went to spinning out this yarn in the firm conviction that he was writing an authentic history and not an archæological romance. He assumed that Sweden must be meant by Plato's Atlantis, that Paradise had been situated