Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 35.djvu/864

838 physician Boerhaave, after some delay, gave him a cordial reception, and recommended him to Burman, at Amsterdam, with whom he stayed a year. Here he accepted an invitation from the wealthy banker Cliffort, who had a great garden and fine library at Hartekamp, and stayed with him three years, living at ease, working in the library and garden and at his studies and his books, and sparing no pains, through the "Hortus Cliffortianus," and his description of the banana, Musa Cliffortiana, to make the fame of his patron lasting.

In 1736 Linnæus visited England, bearing a letter of introduction from Boerhaave. He was received by the botanists there with a reserve which soon thawed and gave place to warm appreciation. Returning to Holland, he completed the printing of his "Genera Plantarum," finished arranging and describing Cliffort's collection of plants, spent a year with Van Royen at Leyden, rearranging the garden, and in 1738 started for Sweden by way of Belgium, Paris (where he formed a lasting friendship with Bernard de Jussieu), and Rouen. Hence he sailed direct for Sweden, intending to establish himself in the practice of medicine at Stockholm. Patients were slow in coming to him, and in his discouragement he said that "if he had not been in love he certainly would have left his native country." His fame, however, which had become conspicuous abroad, had at last reached Sweden, and he gradually obtained a practice, was appointed naval physician, Professor in the School of Mines, etc., and was able to marry the daughter of Dr. Moræus, who had waited for him for several years. He enjoyed the support of influential friends—Marshal the Baron Charles de Geer and Count Tessin—and by their aid succeeded, in 1741, in reaching the summit of his ambition—a professorship in the University of Upsala, which he occupied for thirty-seven years. His fame grew rapidly. "He was long a center to which all important researches in natural history were reported. Numerous disciples attended his lectures and propagated his doctrines verbally, while his own works, scattered abroad, made his system and his reforms popular. His correspondence was extensive, and his letters, many of which have been preserved, exhibit his character in the most favorable light. On his recommendation, the Swedish Government intrusted several young men with distant scientific missions. Among the most distinguished of these travelers were Ternstroem, who traversed the East Indies and died at Poulo Condor, in the China Sea, in 1743; Kalm (whence the name of our mountain laurel, Kalmia latifolia), who explored North America from 1747 to 1751; Hasselquist, who visited Smyrna, Egypt, and Palestine, and died in Smyrna in 1752; Osbeck, who explored China from 1750 to 1752; and Loeffling, who traveled in Spain in 1751 and South America, where he died in 1756."