A Tour in Lapland by Carolus Linnaeus

NOTES

Most of these are in the original. Those added by the transcriber are marked [TN].
1. Ecce suum, &c.: "The lark that tirra-lirra chaunts." Shakespeare's Winter's Tale.
2. Ludus Helmontii: So I understand the original, which is Lapis marmoreus polyzonos. [Agate [TN]
3. Tournefort by this definition probably meant to compare the shape of the leaves, with the ears of some animal. In the criticism of Linnæus respecting the natural affinity of this plant, we may observe how his own system, professedly artificial, and yet so affectedly despised by some botanists for not being natural, led him to the real truth. In fact, some truth is to be learnt from every system and every theory, but perfection is not to be expected from any one.
4. The Swedish ell was 59cm or about 23 inches. [TN]
5. This appears to have been Bartramia pomformis, Bryum pomiforme of Linnaeus. See Fl. Lapp n. 400.
6. It is a curious circumstance that Linnæus in his MS. here has the word Daphne; but his remark is not in any respect applicable to that genus, and he evidently can mean only Andromeda polifolia. He had not as yet named either of these genera in print. The origin of Andromeda will be explained hereafter, and the fanciful idea which gave rise to it had not perhaps at this time occurred. He therefore now either intended to call this plant Daphne, or he accidentally wrote one name by mistake for the other, having both in his mind.
7. The original is very obscure, and I have been obliged partly to guess at the sense of the intermingled Latin and Swedish. I beg leave to suggest that the deficiency of brandy among this sequestered people is perhaps a more probable cause of their robust stature, and even of their neatness and refinement, than that assigned, by Linnæus.
8. Bluish stone: Probably. Saxum fornacum, Linn. Syst. Nat. ed. 12. v. 3. 79.
9. Line: one-twelfth of an inch (2.1 mm. approx.)
10. Linnæus's ideas concerning the genera of Mosses were at this time in a very unsettled state. Could this be anything else than Bartramia pomiformis?
11. Spotted egg: So I interpret Linnæus's cipher in this and another place, which is ovum * sum, (ovum maculosum). If I am wrong, the candid reader will rather compassionate than condemn me; yet Linnæus says, a little further on, that the egg was white.
12 Viola tricolor: More probably, from the place of growth, as well as the description, Viola lutea of Fl. Britannica, and English Botany, vol. 11. t. 721.
13. This student was Tillands, afterwards Professor at Abo, who hence assumed this surname, expressive of his attachment to land, and Linnæus named in honour of him a plant which cannot bear wet. See his Ord. Nat. 291.
14. Linnæus appears to have neglected to describe this Viola in his printed works. May it not be V. lactea, Fl. Brit. 247. Engl. Bot. vol. 7. t. 445?
15. Linnæus soon satisfied himself that the latter was his Rubus Chamæmorus. The arcticus is a much more valuable plant for its fruit, which partakes of the flavour of the raspberry and strawberry, and makes a most delicious wine, used only by the nobility in Sweden.
16. Skulaberget: Its perpendicular height is two hundred Swedish ells. See Dissert. de Angermannia.
17. This cavern has been visited by other naturalists since the time of Linnæus, among whom was Dr. Olof Swartz, the present Bergian Professor of Botany at Stockholm, well known by his various excellent publications, who gathered here the same Byssus (cryptarum) which Linnæus found in the other cavern at Brunaesberget. Both their original specimens are now in my possession
18. How would this very good bread suit English stomachs? This honest adulteration has not been thought of by any of our schemers, whose projects only serve to teach evil-disposed bakers to make bread of anything rather than what they ought, and to spare their pockets at the expense of the public welfare.
19. Peter Artedi: The celebrated writer on fishes, afterwards so intimately connected with Linnæus. The latter published his Ichthyology, and wrote his life in a style which does equal honour to his own feelings and the merit of his friend.
20. Corailoides, &c.: From the above description, this is very likely to have been the Lichen byssoides, Engl. Bot. v. 6. t. 373, in its early state, when it has exactly the appearance Linnæus mentions.
21. By the description and sketch in the manuscript, this seems a variety of L. rangiferinus.
22. Muscus tectorius: I am ignorant what Linnæus means by this denomination.
23. This closely resembles the French method of cleaning, or at least scrubbing, their rooms, except that the Laplanders have the advantage in using water as well as a brush.
24. Electuary: A medicine in the form of a thick syrup. [TN]
25. Merganser: On this subject see Dr. Latham's excellent paper in the fourth vol. of the Linn. Society's Transactions, p. 90.
26. The manuscript mentions both Erica and Tetralix, yet the latter is not in the Flora Lapponica, nor is it common in Sweden.
27. Linnæa: This name occurs here for the first time in the manuscript.
28. The original is Daphne as above.
29. List: a narrow strip of cloth.[TN]
30. Linnæus has mentioned this circumstance in his Flora Lapponica, n. 240, where he confounds Melampyrum pratense and sylvaticum together as one species.
31. Linnæus writes as if he did not absolutely disbelieve the existence of these frogs, which were as much out of their place as Jonah in the whale's belly. The patient probably laboured under a debility of the stomach and bowels, not uncommon in a more luxurious state of society, which is attended with frequent internal noise from wind, especially when the mind is occasionally agitated. Yet the idea of frogs or toads in the stomach has often been credited. Not many years ago a story appeared in the Norwich paper, of a gentleman's servant having eaten toad-spawn with water cresses, which being hatched, occasioned dreadful uneasiness, till he brought up a large toad by means of an emetic; and this story was said to have been sworn before the mayor of Lynn; as if it had been really true.
32. These colonists (novaccolæ) are often mentioned in the Flora Lapponica.
33. Juncellus aquaticus: It must surely be the Scirpus cæspitosus of which Linnæus here speaks.
34. When Linnæus wrote this sentence, he seems to have had a presentiment of his own matrimonial fate, just the reverse in this very point of that he was describing.
35. It may seem presumptuous to attempt the solution of a question which Linnæus has thus left in the dark; but perhaps the almost continual action of the prevailing strong winds, such as he describes in many parts of his journal, may give a twist to the fibres of these pines during their growth.
36. In the Flora Suecica, and Amœn. Acad. v. 1.511, these properties are attributed to the Schœnus mariscus, which Scheuchzer in his Agrostographia, p. 377, assures us forms the floating islands near Tivoli.
37. These birds had partly acquired their summer plumage.
38. I must here present the English reader with a passage on this subject from the Flora Lapponica. "The Lapland youth, having found this Agaric, carefully preserves it in a little pocket hanging at his waist, that its grateful perfume may render him more acceptable to his favourite fair one. O whimsical Venus! In other regions you must be treated with coffee and chocolate, preserves and sweetmeats, wines and dainties, jewels and pearls, gold and silver, silks and cosmetics, balls and assemblies, music and theatrical exhibitions: here you are satisfied with a little withered fungus!"
39. Linnæus's words are "to wash down the water."
40. This is no new instance of contrariety between the tyranny of man and the gospel of Christ, whose "yoke is easy and his burden light." If these innocent people were to complain of it to their spiritual guides, they might be told, as on another occasion, see above that "it was a trifle not worth thinking about." We cannot here say with Pope,
"The devil and the king divide the prize,"
but we may presume that the fine is considered as no less indispensable an atonement than the penance.—Pity that such tractable sheep should not be better worth shearing!
41. Calculus: Kidney or bladder stone.[TN]
42. Tremella juniperina of Linnæus, T. sabina of Dickson: see English Botany, v. 10. t.710, which I am persuaded is merely an exudation from the shrub that bears it.
43. The more correct characters, founded by Haller and Swartz on the anthers, reduce this plant very successfully to the genus Orchis, with Satyrium hircinum likewise.
44. Here we find the Hedwigian theory of the fructification of mosses forestalled by the good sense and accurate observation of Linnæus, though out of respect for Dillenius be soon after adopted the erroneous opinion of the latter, making what is really the male the female, and vice versa. See Transactions of the Linnæan Society, v. 7. 255. Not being able to investigate every point of systematical and physiological botany thoroughly himself, he, with amiable deference, often trusted to those who had more particularly studied certain subjects.
45. Linnæus, in the Amœnitates Academicæ, says the Swedish summer is in its highest beauty when "the fresh shoots of the fir illuminate the woods."
46. Linnæus has drawn this fanciful analogy further in his Flora Lapponica. "At length," says he, "comes Perseus in the shape of Summer, dries up the surrounding water and destroys the monsters, rendering the damsel a fruitful mother, who then carries her head (the capsule) erect."
47. Here the Linnæan system of Mammalia seems first to have occurred to the mind of its author.
48. Myrgiolingen: What this word expresses I am unable to determine.
49. Linneus in the Flora Lapponica, ed. 2. 53, tells us that "in times of extreme scarcity the roots of this plant, dried and powdered, are mixed with a small quantity of meal, and serve to make the miserable bread of the poorer settlers in Lapland, which is extremely bitter and detestable." In the same work, p. 259, he describes an excellent kind of bread made of the roots of Calla palustris, which though acrid when fresh, become wholesome if dried, and boiled afterwards in water, as is the case with its near relation our common Arum, and the Jatropha Manihot, or Cassava, of the West Indies.
50. Deals: Wooden planks.
51. In Törner's work on the Geography of Sweden is the following curious account: "Skelleftea, a parish consisting of about one hundred and fifty whole farms (in Swedish hemman), and containing four thousand souls, is situated near a cove or arm of the sea, in which is an island, formerly of considerable extent but now very small. St. Stephen is said to have prophesied that the day of judgment will come as soon as this island is entirely washed away. The island certainly diminishes yearly, but everyone must judge for himself as to the probability of the prophecy."
52. Coriaceous: Like leather [TN]
53. Hic pauper cornua sumit: "Here the poor man takes up horns." Alluding to Horace's "addis cornua pauperi." ["you give horns (i.e. courage, strength) to the poor man." Horace, Odes bk. 3 ode 21 l.18.[TN]
54. By this comparison, and the subsequent allusion to an Ichneumon and a Hornet, Linnæus at the present period appears to have taken this Asilus for one of the hymenopterous order, and he even calls it an Ichneumon in Act. Uppsala. ann. 1736, p. 29, n. 8. The history of its attacking the feet of cattle is given in the first edition of Fauna Suecica, 308, on the authority of the country people, but is omitted in the second, probably because Linnæus found he had been misinformed. My learned entomological friend the Rev. Mr. Kirby observes that the real Oestrus bovis is, as has from all antiquity been believed, the cause of the above-described agitation in cattle, who escape it by running into cool damp places, which it dislikes to frequent.
55. gutta serena: Loss of sight caused by disease of the optic nerve. [TN]
56. Ray: See his Historia Plantarum, v. 1. 655, which Linnæus here correctly quotes from memory.
57. Coral-rooted Orchis: In the Flora Lapponica this plant is said to be very frequent in Lapland. In other countries it is usually reckoned extremely rare; but I was favoured by Mr. Edward John Maughan, a young botanist of Edinburgh, in the summer of 1807, with a copious supply of specimens and living roots, gathered amongst willows in a peat bog, a little to the south of Dalmahoy hill, about nine miles from Edinburgh. Some of the roots blossomed in my garden.
58. In this instance the Linnnæan system led to a true knowledge of the natural affinity of the plant, which one founded on the corolla would scarcely have done.
59. Linnæus perhaps means, that they may have a pretence to avoid the drudgery of going to church, through some of the hardships he has already described; yet here the church seems to have been near at hand, and in itself not unentertaining.
60. In Tuneld's Geography, I am told, is the following account of this church: "The parish church of Luleå is regarded as the oldest in Västerbotten, having been built in the very earliest ages of Christianity, and was very famous while the catholic religion prevailed in Sweden. It contains a remarkable old altar-piece, the gilding of which cost 2408 ducats. In the vestry a copy of the canonical law, in seven volumes folio, is still preserved."
61. New Melampyrum: What this was does not appear. M. pratense and sylvaticum only have been found in Lapland.
62. The author in his Flora Lapponica, n.13, mentions having found his Pinguicula villosa growing among Bog-moss, Sphagnum, near this place, and in no other. This plant is not noticed in the manuscript Tour.
63. I have known one instance of such bigotry, or rather hypocrisy, out of Lapland.
64. See Simler, who calls the Primula farinosa "Cæsar or Regulus among herbs."[Cæsar was the first Roman emperor, Regulus the last [TN]
65. This remark of Linnæus I have borrowed from Fl. Lapp. n.221.
66. In this and many following instances, the original names in the manuscript are here retained, as a matter of curiosity to the learned botanist, who will be interested in seeing to whom Linnæus extemporaneously dedicated his new genera as they occurred, and who will at the same time admire his sagacity, in determining them, at first sight, so correctly, that not one has subsequently been set aside by any of his severest critics.
67. These particulars concerning the casting of the horns of the reindeer, much confused in the manuscript, are corrected from the admirable history of this animal in the Amoenitates Academicæ, v.4. 150. It is there said that the castrated males also cast their horns, but rarely before they are nine years old. The sooner they begin, the more healthy they are esteemed.
68. "Sed ad hoc Sorberius nihil." ["But Sorberius said nothing to this." Samuel Sorberius was a 17th Century scholar. I have been unable to trace the source of this quotation[TN]
69. Silene rupestris: This appears by the Flora Suecica to be likewise a native of Uppland.
70. Flummery: Porridge made from wheatmeal.
71. Linnæus's expression is, "they do not spring upon it with boots and spurs."
72. Who Mr. Ingerald was, does not appear. Perhaps the master of the boat, or somebody whom Linnæus met at the house of the good curate.
73. This opinion of Linnæus coincides with what M. de Saussure observed in ascending Mont Blanc. We cannot say so much in favour of his subsequent theory.
74. Here the effects are mistaken for causes.
75. This simple Laplander certainly took Linnæus for a conjurer, and the book for something equivalent to the magical drum of his own country, to which he resorts, in time of doubt or trouble, with as much confidence as a devotee to the shrine of a saint, or any other "Jack in a box."
76. A notable method of converting these poor people from pagan superstitions, and of exemplifying the mild and just spirit of the Christian religion! This bleeding was as effectual as that practised by the grand inquisitor upon a king of Spain, who showed symptoms of humanity at an auto-da-fé, even without the flogging superadded in the latter case, which the pious crusader against Lapland drums did not find necessary.
77. The discovery of the plant in question is related in the Flora Lapponica in so interesting a manner, that we cannot refrain from translating the passage. See the second edition, p. 135.
"I met with this plant but once, and that throughout a journey of four hours, over the celebrated mountain of Wallivari in the district of Luleå, to-wards a tract of country which lies about half way between the northern and western part, where it grew in great abundance.
Whilst I was walking quickly along, in a profuse perspiration, facing the cold wind, at midnight; if I may call it night when the sun was shining without setting at all; still anxiously inquiring of my interpreter how near we were to a Lapland dwelling, which I had for two hours been expecting, though I knew not its precise situation; casting my eager eyes around me in all directions, I perceived as it were the shadow of this plant, but did not stop to examine it, taking it for the Empetrum. But after going a few steps further, an idea of its being something I was unacquainted with came across my mind, and turned back; when I should again have taken it for the Empetrum, had not its greater height caused me to consider it with more attention. I know not what it is that so deceives the sight in our Alps during the night, as to render objects far less distinct than in the middle of the day, though the sun shines equally bright. The sun being near the horizon, spreads its rays in such a horizontal direction, that a hat can scarcely protect our eyes: besides, the shadows of plants are so infinitely extended, and so confounded with each other, from the tremulous agitation caused by the blustering wind, that objects very different in themselves are scarcely to be distinguished from each other. Having gathered one of these plants, I looked about and found several more in the neighbourhood, all on the north side, where they grew in plenty; but I never met with the same in any other place afterwards. As at this time they had lost their flowers, and were ripening seed, it was not till after I had sought for a very long time that I met with a single flower, which was white, shaped like a lily of the valley, but with five sharper divisions."
78. This strange passage is presumed to allude to a little gun, four or five inches long, still shown in the arsenal at Stockholm, with which vulgar report says the famous Queen Christina used to kill fleas.
79. It is not impossible that Linnæus might be misled here by the prejudices of his time, or by those of the people from whom he obtained his account.
80. The whole of this account of the hay consists, in the manuscript, of such concise, disjointed, and obscure notes, that we are by no means certain of having preserved the exact sense.
81. La Motraye, after describing the Lapland sledge, observes that "it is attached by a single trace or thong, passing under the belly of the reindeer, and fixed to a leather collar which goes round the animal's neck. A long cord made of twisted fir bark, tied to his horns, serves, when pulled in a straight line, to stop his course, or, when drawn toward either side, to turn him in that direction. When this cord is made to strike him gently, by a vertical motion, on the back, it urges him to greater speed. The overturn of the sledge, where the road is uneven, is prevented by a stick, which serves, like the oar or paddle of a boat, to guide its course."
82. Linnæus records this misfortune in his Flora Lapponica, at n.42, see ed. 2. p. 27, where, in speaking of Arundo calamagrostis, he says he "presumes the synonyms are rightly applied, though he had no opportunity of comparing his plant with books and descriptions, having lost the specimen, with various other natural productions, by being cast away as he was descending one of the great rivers of Lapland." The synonym of Morison at least, which he has thus by memory applied, proves to be erroneous.
83. This account does not agree with the description in the Flora Lapponica, but is the most correct.
84. This also is correct.
85. A few further remarks on the above subject, printed in the Flora Lapponica, may be acceptable to the English reader.
"This disease made no regular progress, nor was it communicated by infection from one animal to another. The cows are driven all together in the spring to feed in a meadow, near the town, to the southwest, on the other side of a creek of the river, in which I was informed the greatest mortality happened. The symptoms differ in different cases; but all the cattle, feeding indiscriminately, are seized with a swelling of the abdomen, attended with convulsions, and die with horrid bellowing, in the space of a few days. No person dares venture to flay the recent carcases, it having been found by experience that not only the hands, but even the face, in consequence of the warm steams from the body, became inflamed and gangrenous, and that death finally ensued.
I was asked whether this disease was a kind of plague; whether the meadow in question produced any venomous spiders; or whether the yellow-coloured water was poisonous.
That it was no plague appeared from its not being contagious, and from the spring being its most fatal season. I saw no spiders here, except what are common throughout all Sweden; nor was the yellow sediment of the water anything more than a common innocent ochre of iron.
I had scarcely landed from the boat in which I was taken to this meadow, than the Cicuta presented itself before me, and explained the cause of all this destruction. It is most abundant in the meadow where the cattle are first seized with the distemper, especially near the shore. The slightest observation teaches us that brute animals distinguish, by natural instinct, such plants as are wholesome to them, from such as are poisonous. The cattle therefore do not eat this Hemlock in summer or autumn; whence few of them perish at those seasons, and such only as devour the herb in question incautiously, or from an inordinate appetite. But when they are first turned out in the spring, partly from their eagerness for fresh herbage, partly from their long fasting and starvation, they seize with avidity whatever comes within their reach. The herbage is then but short, and insufficient to satisfy them; probably also it is in general more succulent, immersed under water, and scarcely perceptibly scented; so that they are unable to distinguish the wholesome from the pernicious kinds. I remarked everywhere that the radical leaves only were cropped, no others; which confirmed what I have asserted. In a neighbouring meadow I saw this same plant cut with the hay for winter food; so that it is no wonder if in that state some, even of the more cautious cattle, are destroyed by it."
Fl. Lapp. ed. 2. 76.
86. Celery: This plant is not mentioned in the Flora Lapponica, and the account annexed seems to belong to Ligusticum scoticum, n. 107 of that work, with which it well agrees.
87. Linnæus in this description denominates these leaflets, whether of the general or partial involucrum, radii; a term he always subsequently used for the stalks of the umbels.
88. King Charles the Eleventh, on his visit to Tornio in 1694, was accompanied by Count G. Douglas, Lord Lieutenant; Count Piper, Counsellor of Chancery; J. Hoghusen, Counsellor of the Board of War; and some other learned men, and in the night between the 13th and 14th of June saw, from the belfry of the church, the midnight sun, at that time visible there to a person placed on such an elevation. The year following, Professors Bilberg and Spole were sent to Tornio to repeat these observations. The royal visit to Tornio was commemorated by a medal struck on the occasion, having on one side the bust of the king; on the reverse, a representation of the sun half above the horizon, with this motto, Soli inocciduo Sol obvius alter;["The North Polar sun meets the other sun"[TN]and beneath, Iter Regis ad Botniam Occidentalem, Mense Junio 1694.["Journey of the King to Västerbotten, June 1694"[TN]
89. Quales cruda vivo puella servat: "Which a virgin bride keeps for her spouse." The preceding line is et talis tumor excitet papillas "a rounded fullness swells the breast." Martial, Epigrams, Bk. 8 no. 64 not 63, in the Loeb edition. [TN]
90. Stagehouses: Stegerhusen. I have not been able to make out the precise meaning of this word.
91. List: A strip of cloth [TN]
92. John Messenius, famous for his learning and his misfortunes, was professor of law and politics at Uppsala, in the reign of the great Gustavus Adolphus, who had a high esteem for him, and who exerted all his wisdom, and even his power, to allay the envy and hatred of some of the colleagues of this able man, especially of John Rudbeck, a malignant though learned theologian. The king in vain endeavoured to pacify Rudbeck by preferment, while he removed Messenius to Stockholm, and made him a member of the new council established there. The latter was formally accused of being a secret partisan of the deposed Catholic king Sigismond, and was condemned to a perpetual prison, where he composed a great work entitled Scandia Illustrata, published at Stockholm between the years 1700 and 1714. Messenius died in 1636. His son Arnold might be justified for detesting those who had persecuted his illustrious father, but not for the folly of expressing his feelings in satirical publications against people in power. For this he paid with his life on the scaffold in 1648, and his own son, aged about 17, suffered with him.
93. Tumps: Tough clumps of vegetation
94. In the Journal, Linnæus speaks of Mr. Oladron as the curate of Lycksele, and his wife.
95. 15th of July: The manuscript says July 1st, but this does not agree with the original journal, which therefore I have followed. See the Journal under 15th July, above.
96. Astragalus leontinus: Jacq. Ic. Rar, t.154. Willd. Sp. Pl. v.3. 1287.
97. Juncus curvatus: We know not what species the author intends by this name.