_I.--A Wandering Scientist_
Carolus Linnæus, the celebrated Swedish naturalist, was
born at Rashult on May 23, 1707. At school his taste for
botany was encouraged, but after an unsatisfactory
academic career his father decided to apprentice him to a
tradesman. A doctor called Rothmann, however, recognised
and fostered his scientific talents, and in 1728, on
Rothmann's advice, he went to Upsala and studied under the
celebrated Rudbeck. In 1732 he made his famous tour in
Lapland. He gives a fascinating account of this journey in
"A Tour in Lapland" ("Lachesis Lapponica"), published in
1737. In 1739 he was appointed a naval physician, and in
1741 became professor of medicine at the University of
Upsala, but in the following year exchanged his chair for
that of botany. To Linnæus is due the honour of having
first enunciated the true principles for defining genera
and species, and that honour will last so long as biology
itself endures. He found biology a chaos; he left it a
cosmos. He died on January 10, 1778. Among his published
works are "Systema Naturæ," "Fundamenta Botanica," and the
"Species Plantarum."
Having been appointed by the Royal Academy of Sciences to travel through
Lapland for the purpose of investigating the three kingdoms of nature in
that country, I prepared my wearing apparel and other necessaries for
the journey.
I carried a small leather bag, half an ell in length, but somewhat less
in breadth, furnished on one side with hooks and eyes, so that it could
be opened and shut at pleasure. This bag contained one shirt, two pairs
of false sleeves, two half shirts, an inkstand, pencase, microscope, and
spying glass, a gauze cap to protect me occasionally from the gnats, a
comb, my journal, and a parcel of paper stitched together for drying
plants, both in folio; my manuscript ornithology, _Flora Uplandica_,
and _Characteres generici_. I wore a hanger at my side, and carried a
small fowling-piece, as well as an octangular stick, graduated for the
purpose of measuring.
I set out alone from the city of Upsal on Friday, May 22, 1732, at
eleven o'clock, being at that time within half a day of twenty-five
years of age.
At this season nature wore her most cheerful and delightful aspect, and
Flora celebrated her nuptials with Phoebus. The winter corn was half a
foot in height, and the barley had just shot out its blade. The birch,
the elm, and the aspen-tree began to put forth their leaves.
A number of mares with their colts were grazing everywhere near the
road. I remarked the great length of the colts' legs, which, according
to common opinion, are as long at their birth as they will ever be. I
noticed young kids, under whose chin, at the beginning of the throat,
were a pair of tubercles, like those seen in pigs, about an inch long,
and clothed with a few scattered hairs. Of their use I am ignorant. The
forest abounded with the yellow anemone (_Anemone ranunculoides_), which
many people consider as differing from that genus. One would suppose
they had never seen an anemone at all. Here, also, grew hepatica, and
wood sorrel. Their blossoms were all closed. Who has endowed plants with
intelligence to shut themselves up at the approach of rain? Even when
the weather changes in a moment from sunshine to rain they immediately
close.
Near the great river Linsnan I found blood-red stones. On rubbing them I
found the red colour external and distinct from the stone; in fact, it
was a red byssus.
At Enänger the people seemed somewhat larger in stature than in other
places, especially the men. I inquired whether the children are kept
longer at the breast than is usual with us, and was answered in the
affirmative. They are allowed that nourishment more than twice as long
as in other places. I have a notion that Adam and Eve were giants, and
that mankind from one generation to another, owing to poverty and other
causes, have diminished in size. Hence, perhaps, the diminutive stature
of the Laplanders.
The old tradition that the inhabitants of Helsingland never have the
ague is untrue, since I heard of many cases.
Between the post-house of Iggsund and Hudwiksvall a violet-coloured clay
is found in abundance, forming a regular stratum. I observed it likewise
in a hill, the strata of which consisted of two or three fingers'
breadths of common vegetable mould, then from four to six inches of
barren sand, next about a span of the violet clay, and lastly, barren
sand. The clay contained small and delicately smooth white bivalve
shells, quite entire, as well as some larger brown ones, of which great
quantities are to be found near the waterside. I am therefore convinced
that all these valleys and marshes have formerly been under water, and
that the highest hills only then rose above it. At this spot grows the
_Anemone hepatica_ with a purple flower; a variety so very rare in other
places that I should almost be of the opinion of the gardeners, who
believe the colours of particular earths may be communicated to flowers.
On May 21 I found at Natra some fields cultivated in an extraordinary
manner. After the field had lain fallow three or four years, it is sown
with one part rye and two parts barley, mixed together. The barley
ripens, and is reaped. The rye, meantime, goes into leaf, but shoots up
no stem, since it is smothered by the barley. After the barley has been
reaped, however, the rye grows and ripens the following year, producing
an abundant crop.
_II.--Lapland Customs_
The Laplanders of Lycksele prepare a kind of curd or cheese from the
milk of the reindeer and the leaves of sorrel. They boil these leaves
in a copper vessel, adding one-third part water, stirring it continually
with a ladle that it may not burn, and adding fresh leaves from time to
time till the whole acquires the consistence of a syrup. This takes six
or seven hours, after which it is set by to cool, and is then mixed with
the milk, and preserved for use from autumn till the ensuing summer in
wooden vessels, or in the first stomach of the reindeer. It is stored
either in the caves of the mountains or in holes dug in the ground, lest
it should be attacked by the mountain mice.
In Angermanland the people eat sour milk prepared in the following
manner. After the milk is turned, and the curd taken out, the whey is
put into a vessel, where it remains till it becomes sour. Immediately
after the making of cheese, fresh whey is poured lukewarm on the former
sour whey. This is repeated several times, care being always taken that
the fresh whey be lukewarm. This prepared milk is esteemed a great
dainty by the country people. They consider it as very cooling and
refreshing. Sometimes it is eaten along with fresh milk. Intermittent
fevers would not be so rare here as they are if they could be produced
by acid diet, for then this food must infallibly occasion them.
In Westbothland one of the peasants had shot a young beaver, which fell
under my examination. It was a foot and a half long, exclusive of the
tail, which was a palm in length and two inches and a half in breadth.
The hairs on the back were longer than the rest; the external ones
brownish black, the inner pale brown; the belly clothed with short,
dark-brown fur; body depressed; ears obtuse, clothed with fine short
hairs and destitute of any accessory lobe; snout blunt, with round
nostrils; upper lip cloven as far as the nostrils; lower very short; the
whiskers black, long, and stout; eyebrow of three bristles like the
whiskers over each eye; neck, none. The fur of the belly was
distinguished from that of the sides by a line on each side, in which
the skin was visible. Feet clothed with very short hairs, quite
different from those of the body. A fleshy integument invested the whole
body. There were two cutting teeth in each jaw, of which the upper pair
were the shortest, and notched at the summit like steps; the lower and
larger pair were sloped off obliquely--grinders very far remote from the
fore-teeth, which is characteristic of the animal, four on each side;
hind feet webbed, but fore feet with separate claws; tail flat, oblong,
obtuse, with a reticulated naked surface.
At Lycksele was a woman supposed to have a brood of frogs in her
stomach, owing to drinking water containing frogs' spawn. She thought
she could feel three of them, and that she and those beside her could
hear them croak. Her uneasiness was alleviated by drinking brandy. Salt
had no effect in killing the frogs, and even _nux vomica_, which had
cured another case of the same kind, was useless. I advised her to try
tar, but she had already tried it in vain.
The Lycksele Laplanders are subject, when they are compelled to drink
the warm sea water, to _allem_, or colic, for which they use soot,
snuff, salt, and other remedies. They also suffer from asthma, epilepsy,
pleurisy, and rheumatism. Fever and small-pox are rare. They cure coughs
by sulphur laid on burning fungus.
On June 3, being lost amid marshes, I sent a man to obtain a guide.
About two in the afternoon he returned, accompanied by an extraordinary
creature. I can scarce believe that any practical description of a fury
could come up to the idea which this Lapland fair one excited. It might
well be imagined she was really of Stygian origin. Her stature was very
diminutive; her face of the darkest brown, from the effects of smoke;
her eyes dark and sparkling; her eyebrows black. Her pitchy-coloured
hair hung loose about her head, and she wore a flat, red cap.
Though a fury in appearance, she addressed me with mingled pity and
reserve.