Linnaeus

LINNAEUS, Carl. (Born: Rashult, Provience of Smaland, Sweden, 23 May 1707; Died:
Uppsala, Sweden, 10 January 1778)
Linneaus was educated at the Universities of Lund and Uppsala, where he studied medicine. He became adunctus to Olaf Rudbeck, at the University of Uppsala in 1730. On a government sponsored expedition, he travelled 4,600 miles in Lapland and Upper Scandinavia, discovering 100 new species of plants. In 1732, he taught students how to assay ores. In 1738, he became naval physician in Stockholm. Appointed professor of medicine and botany at the University of Uppsala in 1741, Linneaus became widely
known as the greatest botanist of his time.
His Masterpiece Systema Naturæ, 1735 is one of the most famous and important books in the history of science, as well as one of the rariest lapideum) as well. Although Linnaeus would refine the system through extensive additions and alterations, its main principals would remain unchanged through the many subsequent editions. In creating a mineral classification, he attempted to duplicate what he had done for plants and animals. This method, which
does not take chemical composition into account and inherently assumes organic propogation, is not suited to the inorganic products of nature, and the mineral system could never be as useful as his biological systems. Nevertheless, Linnaeus and the principals of his mineralogical system, first outlined in this work, exterted a great influence in mineralogical science. His observations in this field as well as geology and paleontology were in advance of his time. For example, he correctly attributed the origin of fossils to be the petrified remains of formerly living creatures.
There were 12 editions revised by Linnaues of the ‘Systema’ In the last one, with reference to mineralogy, he classifies minerals according to a binomial system for the first time. There are plates belonging to the mineralogical volume, which occupies volume four. He states in the preface that three methods one might use to investigate the stones, minerals and fossils found in the natural enviroment. The first was the physical, which ”descended through the obscure generation of minerals”; the second was the natural, which ”considered the superficial and visible structures”; and the third was the chemical, which ascended through to the middle course, and, having thus provided a justification of his methodology, Linnaeus proceeded to make a systematic classification of various crystalline substances.