Uncovering Daniel Solander 1733–1782 Edward Duyker want to do is tell you something about the Discovery Centre, Kurnell, process of uncovering this story of the first Wednesday, 26 March 2008 Swede to circle the globe who was also It is ten years since one of the pioneers of the natural sciences Nature’s Argonaut, my in the Pacific. In doing so, you will see that biography of Danel while manuscripts and published sources Solander was are crucial to an published. Indeed it historian, so too was launched here in is actually visiting the Sutherland Shire the places he or in 1998. At the time I she writes about. thanked the Björklunda Sutherland Shire Daniel Solander Library service for all the help they had was born in 1733, in Piteå, just south of given me and for all the inter-library loans the Arctic circle on the Gulf of Bothnia. He they had organized for me. I also reflected was not baptised Daniel Carl Solander (as on the fact that the Endeavour was a one so often sees in reference works), remarkable floating library when she rather he later adopted the middle name arrived here at Bay, and that a ‘Carlsson’ to distinguish himself from his great many of the books that we know uncle, also named Daniel. Solander's were aboard her were still available in our father, Carl, like his grandfather, was the local library, but, of course, in modern local vicar. His mother Magdalena editions. Bostadia was the daughter of a provincial Chief Justice. Although the house in which One could add that the Daniel was born has been demolished, the books written aboard house in which he grew up, 'Björklunda', the Endeavour in the still stands. It was built shortly after the form of journals by town was burnt to the ground by Russian Cook, Banks and raiders during the Great Northern War. Parkinson are also The Solanders were one of the few held in our library. educated families of this sparsely Daniel Solander And, now, so too is my populated frontier Arctic region. It is not biography of Solander. surprising that, in the year before Daniel Indeed, I am well aware that many of you was born, his parents hosted Carl will have read it; so today I don’t want to Linnaeus during his famous Lapland simply repeat Solander’s story. What I journey. Solander’s father was also an

8 amateur scientist. He provided Jurisprudence and intermittently rector of astronomical observations for the Royal the university, but spent most of his free Society of Sciences in Uppsala and was time with Linnaeus' family. He even fell in visited by members of Pierre de love with Linnaeus' eldest daughter, Lisa Maupertuis' important geophysical Stina, and was heartbroken when he was expedition–including Anders Celsius (of prevented from marrying her–but more of centigrade fame)–seeking to prove this later. Newtonian theory that the earth was an oblate spheroid during observations in Like many biographers, I relied very 1736 and 1737. (There is frequently an heavily on my subject’s personal element of serendipity in historical correspondence. Indeed, between 1992 discoveries, I chanced upon this detail and 1995, I worked with my very dear quite by accident, in 1992, while reading a friend Per Tingbrand co-editing surviving rare work by another member of letters Solander wrote or received. These Maupertuis’s expedition, the naturalist were located in repositories all over the Abbé Reginald Outhier, during a visit to the world, including , and published in Lapponica Collection in the Rovaniemi City 1995 by MUP in Melbourne and Library in northern Finland!) Scandinavian University Press in Oslo. Solander's earliest correspondence, We do not know how early young Daniel preserved by the Royal Swedish Academy developed an interest in natural history, of Sciences, dates from February 1753 but it seems likely that it was nurtured by and is written to the physician Johan his father, although he, himself, would later Gustaf Hallman, apparently when he credit his physician friend Johan Gustaf [Hallman] was still in Padua. It may seem Hallman, author of a thesis on passionfruit. like a contradiction in terms to state that Given Carl Solander’s (and Hallman’s) one needs to know what a text is about personal friendship with , it is before one can fully translate it, but this is perhaps not surprising that in 1750, Daniel so often the case. For weeks Per and I began to study natural history under the were unable to transcribe, let alone great master himself. Solander lived in translate, one particular phrase in the Uppsala for nine years with his uncle, letter. Over a two week period I looked at Daniel, who was Professor of the two words with a magnifying glass over

9 and over again without recognition. Then consulted my facsimile of the first edition of suddenly, as if a veil was lifted, I read the Linnaeus’s (1753), that words acarus subcutaneous and the code was broken. Solander was immediately realized that here was a discussing orchids whose specific epithets reference to the itch mite Sarcoptes often allude to spidery and insect-like scabei, the cause of the skin disease flowers. Some English coherence was scabies which I had often seen (and now possible with square bracketed feared) in India. inclusions and footnotes. A whole chunk of the letter suddenly made Around the time that Solander wrote his sense. Given the publication, albeit in letter of 1753 to Johan Gustaf Hallman, he 1777, of Solander’s paper 'Furia infernalis’, assisted Linnaeus in cataloguing the royal largely based on his studies of the 1750s, collections at Ulriksdal and Drottningholm. it is possible that his doctoral dissertation In the summer of the same year he (had he completed one) would have dealt returned to Piteå and followed the Piteå with the insect origins of skin diseases River upstream, before crossing the such as scabies. I should point out that mountains into Norway. Historians often until Solander was given an honorary work with unusual clues (aside from doctorate by Oxford University in manuscripts and printed works) and it is November 1771, his title ‘Dr’ Solander was from botanical specimens in the Natural even more honorific. History Museum in Stockholm, that we For virtually all of know that Solander reached Rørstad (as Solander’s Linnaeus had done two decades before) correspondence on the North Atlantic coast. And in 1755 (in English, he also made a pioneering botanical Swedish, Danish, expedition up the Torne River to Lake Latin and Torneträsk. Retracing these travels with German), I took my family in 1992 I realized that Solander on the task of could not have been the effete dilettante deciphering the that some have painted him. Nor was he embedded names unfamiliar with the sea, for several times of authors, books C. Linnaeus he must have sailed the length and and plant and breadth of the unpredictable Gulf of animal species. Without knowing if a Bothnia during these years. writer is referring to a person, a book, a plant or an animal it is often impossible for Although requests had been made of, by a translator to make sense of a text. British naturalists such as Peter Collinson, Another letter of Solander that I found in and , to send someone who the Library was written could give instruction in Linnean methods, in Latin to the great Swiss polymath there is little doubt that Solander was Albrecht von Haller in December 1760. I despatched (with a stipend) so that he had only studied Latin for two years in high could provide useful information and plants school, but even with the help of more to . In 1759 he travelled south to experienced classical scholars (including the province of Skåne with the intention of Gough Whitlam’s sister Freda) the letter sailing from Helsingor in Denmark. stubbornly resisted clear translation. Aside Crossing the North Sea was fraught with from the fact that eighteenth-century letters the usual dangers of the sea, but this was are rarely in uncorrupted classical Latin, also wartime. Unfortunately, he was the introductory first page was missing and forced to spend the winter with relatives the remaining sheets were full of after he contracted malaria. He did not abbreviations, page numbers and a reach until July 1760. Ironically, puzzling mélange of botanical and the vessel he originally intended to sail on, seemingly entomological terms like sank with heavy loss of life. insectifera, arachnoideas, muscas, As Linnaeus did a quarter of a century araneas, scarabaeus. It was only when I before, Solander went immediately to the 10 Swedish Church in . When I Desperate to offer our readers a followed his trail there, I was surprised by comprehensive collection of Solander’s the frosty reception I received. It was only correspondence, I sent an urgent fax to after I insisted that my interest was in Philadelphia explaining our project and our eighteenth-century rather than nineteenth- looming deadline, but was very century records, that the mood changed. disappointed to learn that the letter could The parish secretary was convinced that I not be found. Then the librarian was working on Jack the Ripper! I was remembered that there was a photostat, stunned, until she explained that one of the dating from the 1950s, in the Franklin Ripper’s victims was a Swedish prostitute Collection at Yale University Library. It is named Elizabeth ‘Long Liz’ Stride and that hard for me to describe the surreal over the years she had been pestered by a pleasure and relief I felt on receiving that succession of amateur sleuths. eighteenth-century letter from Yale the following morning: it is not often that one Through John Ellis, Solander quickly met receives a fax from someone who has most of the leading naturalists and been dead for nearly 240 years telling you nurserymen in London, including James that Benjamin Franklin is coming for the Lee, the Scottish-born gardener and weekend! author who introduced the Fuchsia to Europe. Solander soon became Throughout this period of pioneering indispensable to these British naturalists and museology, Solander led a seeking to put their collections into double-life as a Swedish agent. Once Linnean systematic order. When they again, there was an element of serendipity learned that Linnaeus wanted Solander to in discovering this fact. I was very curious leave Britain and take up the chair of how Britain could be at war with France botany in St Petersburg, they were aghast and allied to Prussia, yet continue to buy and quickly rallied to secure a position for iron ore from Sweden, which was at war him in the fledgling , then with Prussia and allied to France. A study located in Montagu House and only 15 of the diplomatic canvas of the period led years old as an institution. me to the Calendar of Home Office Papers during the Seven Years’ War (published in Solander continued to make important and 1878 and of which Flinders University has influential friends in London, one of whom the only library copy in Australia) and then was Benjamin Franklin. My first hint of this to the papers of the pioneering industrialist was a letter the Quaker naturalist Peter of the age of steam, Matthew Boulton, in Collinson wrote to Solander in October Birmingham. 1767. Unfortunately for a time the location and full text of this letter was a mystery, Espionage has long been an adjunct of because in 1991, Per Tingbrand, my co- normal academic, diplomatic and editor for Solander’s correspondence, commercial activity–and I speak as a suffered a devastating cerebral former intelligence officer myself. In haemorrhage which left him with impaired Solander's case there is circumstantial speech, epilepsy and memory loss. Per evidence that he collected industrial and had noted the existence of Collinson’s perhaps even military intelligence in Britain letter to Solander in a working calendar of during two tours of southern England. He correspondence, but he simply could not clearly took a special interest in glass remember where it was held. Shortly making in Bristol, metal working in before we were obliged to hand our Woodstock and naval movements in manuscript to our publisher Melbourne Portsmouth. However, there is much University Press, he suddenly firmer evidence that he assisted the remembered that it was among Benjamin Swedish industrialist and merchant Clas Franklin’s papers in the American Alströmer and his brother Johan, in illegal Philosophical Society’s collection in attempts to recruit skilled British artisans to Philadelphia. Swedish industry. On the orders of the Secretary of State, Solander was put 11 under surveillance and his mail was and draughtsmen, several volunteers who intercepted. Thus, in 1765 we know that have a tolerable notion of Natural History; he wrote at least four letters to Matthew in short Solander assured me this Boulton, in an attempt to lure him to expedition would cost Mr Banks ten Sweden. One can only speculate on the thousand pounds. course the Industrial Revolution might have taken had Boulton gone to Sweden The Endeavour left England in late August rather than partnered James Watt! 1768. If Solander kept a journal during the voyage it has not survived, but he did write Within a few years of becoming Assistant letters from Madeira and Rio de Janeiro Keeper at the British Museum, Solander which give him a voice in recounting made England his permanent home. In aspects of the expedition. Solander, for refusing the chair of botany in St example, tells us of their warm reception in Petersburg, he offended Linnaeus who Madeira from expatriate English, local appears to have had plans for him to religious orders and the Portuguese succeed him in Uppsala. Solander's governor and in sharp contrast he tells us brazen independence may also have cost of their ill-treatment by the Portuguese him the hand in marriage of Linnaeus’ authorities in Brazil who refused to let the daughter. After October 1762, we know of members of the expedition land except only one other letter Solander wrote to his those directly engaged in the purchase of old teacher. This was from Rio de Janeiro provisions. Solander also tells us of his on board the Endeavour in 1768 and was clandestine visit ashore and their foraging full of anguish. There is no doubt that for botanical specimens among the salad Linnaeus and Solander were estranged by herbs and the fodder for the ship's this time, but I will say more of this later. animals. Both Banks’ and Cook’s journals are also rich in references to Solander and Solander’s voyage around the world on the his adventures (and misadventures) during Endeavour came about through his the expedition. friendship with . It was Banks who met Solander's expenses. He In Tierra del Fuego, for example, Solander showed himself admirably adaptable whether at sea or on land, but Banks had made sure that they were well prepared. As John Ellis recorded in an oft-quoted letter to Linnaeus:

No people ever went to sea better fitted out for the purpose of Natural History, nor more elegantly. They have got a fine library of Natural History; they have all sorts of machines for catching and preserving insects; all kinds of nets, trawls, drags and hooks for coral fishing; they have even a curious contrivance of a telescope, by which, put into the water, you can see the bottom to a great depth, where it is clear. They have many cases of bottles with ground stoppers, of several sizes, to preserve animals in spirits. They have the several sorts of salts to surround the seeds; and wax, both beeswax and that of the Myrica; besides there are many people whose sole business it is to attend them for HM Barque Endeavour (replica) this very purpose. They have two painters

12 nearly froze to death when he and Banks the and had to be underestimated the terrain and the careened for repairs at what is now the weather. Two of Banks' black servants did in North Queensland. perish. Yet another rich botanical harvest was made and Solander would pen the first One of the principal reasons for the description of a Kangaroo – albeit, an expedition was to observe the Transit of unwitting composite of two species. Venus and the Endeavour reached in April 1769. Nothing was left to chance. After confirming the existence of Torres To ensure untroubled observations a fort Strait, the Endeavour sailed for the Dutch with fosses, earthworks and palisade was East Indies where malaria and dysentery erected and manned by marines. killed many of the crew. Solander almost Solander's rather earthy 'Tahitian died too. He was still very weak by the vocabulary' and his 'Observationes de time the Endeavour reached the Cape of Tahiti' (preserved at the School of Oriental Good Hope and suffered a relapse. and African Studies, in London) offer Perhaps having had the disease in numerous insights to his experiences on Sweden he had a degree of immunity the island and also valuable ethno- which helped him survive. botanical information. We also have some A large number oral history of the voyage which Charles of the zoological Blagden recorded from conversations with specimens from Solander, shortly before his death, which the Endeavour are today preserved in the Yale University voyage were Library. eventually lost. But we know From Tahiti, the Endeavour sailed for New that in the Zealand which had not been visited by Pacific alone, Europeans since Tasman's expedition. Banks and Landfall was made at Poverty Bay on the Banks, as drawn by Solander des- Benjamin West. east coast on 8 October 1769. cribed 222 new After six months of running survey with species of fish. Fortunately the botanical landings at Anaura Bay, Tolaga Bay, the collection survived as a whole. In it were Bay of Plenty, Mercury Bay, the Bay of 110 previously unknown genera and 1300 Islands and Queen Charlotte Sound in new species–all described and which both the North and South Islands provisionally named and classified. Banks were circumnavigated and Cook Strait was had planned to publish over 700 botanical discovered, they departed for the east plates with Solander, to be called the coast of New Holland on 31 March 1770 Florilegium. Unfortunately Solander's laden with hundreds of plant specimens. sudden death, the recession induced by Solander’s matching botanical the American War of Independence and manuscripts, such as his Primitae florae Banks' own increasingly diverse interests, Novae Zelandiae – preserved in the British eventually led to the cancellation of the Museum (Natural History) – are also rich in project. Had the Florilegium been detail and contain valuable evidence of the published in the eighteenth century it range of coastal habitats he explored, in would certainly have secured their addition to Maori plant names which he scientific reputations. Instead the world often recorded with amazing accuracy. had to wait until the 1980s for Alecto Historical Editions to publish this work from The Endeavour spent just six days in the original copper plates. . Cook at first named it Stingray Bay, but rechristened it when he Like Banks, Solander returned to Britain a learned of the rich botanical harvest Banks celebrity. And like most celebrities he and Solander had acquired. In the course eventually encountered criticism and of charting the east coast of Australia the satire. Although he left a large number of Endeavour grounded and nearly sank on manuscripts, his reputation suffered 13 because his work was not published and On Orkney they visited the ancient because of accusations of laziness. In standing stones of Stenness and 1992, I was shocked, when reading a copy excavated a Neolithic burial mound at of Hooker's edition of Banks' Endeavour Skail. journal in London, to see it besmirched with savage graffiti: 'Solander was a On their return they visited Edinburgh parasite–he lived on and with Banks where they met the philosopher David practically all his life in England. What did Hume and also Boswell and Johnson soon he give the world? P. C.' The margins of inspired to visit the Hebrides and the such a book deserve better than to Western Isles of Scotland in their wake. become a forum for necrological dispute, Indeed one could say that Banks and but I was glad to see that the feisty New Solander helped to initiate a tradition of Zealand-born scholar Averil Lysaght had romantic tourism in this part of the world. responded in pencil: 'Fools rush in where Indeed Fingal’s cave would inspire angels fear to tread. The slanderer has Mendelssohn’s ‘Hebrides’ Overture, one of not even signed his name!' Despite such J. M. W. Turner’s atmospheric marine unkind sentiments, there is little doubt that landscapes, poems by Scott, Wordsworth Solander was well liked. The novelist and Keats, and even a visit by Queen Fanny Burney, fondly deemed him a Victoria. 'philosophical gossip', while James A decade after his return from Iceland, in Boswell declared: 'Throw him where you May 1782, when he was only 49 years of will, he swims'. age, Solander died as a result of a stroke Solander’s travels did not end with the and was buried in the Swedish Church in Endeavour voyage. When Joseph Banks London, next to the philosopher Emmanuel broke with the Admiralty over the Swedenborg (whose grave was twice preparations for Cook's second great disturbed by grave-robbing phrenologists). voyage, he instead took Solander and the In 1913, just before the original church was team he had assembled, to the Inner demolished, his remains were moved to Hebrides, Iceland and Orkney. (Banks’ Brookwood Cemetery, in Woking and re- companions included other Endeavour interred with a modern granite headstone veterans such as Lt John Gore, the boy paid for by the Royal Swedish Academy of Nicholas Young and Alexander Samarang, Sciences. Poor Swedenborg was sent the Malay servant Banks engaged in back to Sweden for interment in Uppsala Batavia.) Solander’s linguistic and Cathedral (where Linnaeus also lies), but, scientific skills, were of great use to Banks, alas, with the wrong head! particularly in Iceland, then a Danish How then do we Colony. summarise Solander's Aside from their botanical pursuits, in the scientific contribution? Hebrides they climbed the scree-covered To begin with, he was Paps of Jura visited Celtic monastic ruins the first taxonomist to and natural wonders such as Fingal’s cave describe and catalogue on Staffa. (In Nature’s Argonaut I have the natural history speculated whether the artist Sydney collection of the British Parkinson may have inspired this visit Museum. He was an because aboard the Endeavour he had a extraordinarily observant naturalist with a copy of James MacPherson’s purported keen interest in morphology, recognizing translations of the epic works of Ossian both unique characteristics in species and including Fingal, published in 1762.) In generic affinities in far-flung corners of the Iceland they collected ancient manuscripts globe. He catalogued Banks' collection. of the sagas, visited Thingvellir and the He assisted William Aiton with plant eponymous geo-thermal spouts at Geyser, classifications for Kew Gardens. He before visitng the ancient bishopric of catalogued the Duchess of Portland's Skálholt and climbing volcanic Mt Hekla. enormous natural history collection. He 14 helped revise Alexander Russell's Natural ashore in the longboat, just as he enriched History of Aleppo, and contributed to John those of Banks - the future President of the Ellis' Natural History of . He Royal Society - destined to shape the assisted most of the leading British landscape of British scientific endeavours naturalists of his day, including John and institutions as an organizer, facilitator Fothergill, Peter Collinson, Thomas and scientific entrepreneur. Not Pennant, John Lightfoot, John Bartram, infrequently the journals of the expedition and Alexander Garden. Although the record Solander and Cook venturing forth Florilegium was abandoned and together on specific missions and surveys Solander's name is not now formally during their landfalls. Cook no doubt learnt associated with most of the plants he the value of recording descriptive detail collected, his specimens were studied and from a masterly journalist such as Banks, his detailed descriptions were used by but Solander probably also helped teach many other naturalists such as Johan him the value of systematic observation Christian Fabricius, Carl Linnaeus the and comparison - even if expressed in younger, Johann Reinhold Forster, Robert layman's analogies. Surely Solander also Brown, J. D. Hooker, Berthold Seemann had a role in enlarging Cook's vocabulary and George Bentham. Solander had a and expanding his abstract linguistic pioneering role in implanting the Linnean horizons through protracted discourse. system in Britain and clearly had an Three years of subtle intellectual osmosis important scientific influence on Banks: imbued Cook with many of the values of later advising him on domestic matters and the Enlightenment and helped transform a encouraging his candidature for very capable mariner into the greatest of presidency of the Royal Society. For explorers. Banks, Solander's death was the end of the closest male friendship of his life. Of Today, the Solander Library of the Royal their three years together on the Botanic Gardens in Sydney is named in Endeavour he wrote: fitting tribute to Solander's pioneering contribution to the botanical taxonomy of “I can say of him that he combined an Australia. Apart from Cape Solander on incomparable diligence and an the southern arm of Botany Bay, the acumen that left nothing unsettled, Solander Islands of and Olof with an unbelievable equanimity. Swartz's genus Solandra which honour the During all that time we did not once Swedish naturalist, at least seven plants have any altercation which for a moment became heated. We often bear the specific epithet solandri-- as do freely contested each other's opinions two species of fish and Solander's petrel in all subjects, but always ended as Pterodroma solandri. Many more know we had begun, good-humouredly and generally being of the same opinion after one of us had accepted his opponent's reasons . . .” But perhaps Solander's most profound influence was on . The Swedish naturalist was five years younger than the captain of the Endeavour, whereas Banks was fifteen years his junior. The opportunity for a largely self- educated and only recently commissioned Pterodroma solandri (Drawing M. Fukagawa) officer to spend three years in close quarters with a man of Solander's learning Solander’s name from the archival was rare. He must surely have helped ‘Solander box’ he designed during his refine the Yorkshireman's sensibilities years at the British Museum. during mealtime conversations in the great cabin, between watches or in long hauls Ten years after the publication of Nature’s 15 Argonaut, I feel it is incumbent on me, to were true, it may also be possible that raise, once again, a question which I Solander was finally told of his kinship with raised at the very end of my biography of Lisa Stina to explain the impossibility of Solander. Did Linnaeus really want their marriage. Could he then have Solander to marry his eldest daughter and recoiled in wounded anger and silence at could there be another explanation for the the infidelity of his mother, the liberties of tragic breach between the master and his his teacher and the cruel twist of fate favourite pupil? If there is another which denied him marriage to the woman explanation it may involve Solander's he loved? mother. Solander reportedly wrote no more than three letters to her during his Such assertions have absolutely no first decade in England and none after his corroboration, however much they might voyage on the Endeavour. In 1774 neatly explain biographical puzzles. Piteå Magdalena Solander wrote with a heavy in the early 1730s was a deeply heart to Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin that she conservative frontier town where it seems had 'no hope to expect a letter' from her inconceivable that a pastor's wife would son, but still believed he wanted to hear risk her husband's respect and her from her. Three years later she echoed community position through adultery. these sentiments in yet another sad letter In the decade since the publication of my to Wargentin. Pointedly, it was asserted biography of Solander I have frequently by Sir James Edward Smith founder of the pondered this question and wondered Linnean Society of London, that after whether DNA testing of the bones which lie Solander's death several letters from his in Uppsala Cathedral and in Brookwood mother were found unopened, presumably Cemetery (if any still remain) can confirm among his effects. There is no or dismiss rumours of Solander's paternity. corroboration for Smith's assertion, but But with our modern freedoms and could it be that Solander was somehow sensibilities we tend to forget the values, hurt or offended by his mother rather than aspirations and pressures of the simply dilatory as his absence from eighteenth century. Linnaeus was not born Sweden grew more and more permanent? into the Swedish aristocracy, he was Linnaeus declared of Solander that he had ennobled in his 50s. He wanted his son to 'cherished him as a son' under his own marry into wealth and status. roof. It will also be remembered that eight Ultimately his son would not marry at all months before Solander's birth, Linnaeus and his relationship with his father would visited Piteå and stayed with the Solander remain deeply strained. Linnaeus seems family. to have had similar aspirations for his As a consequence, there have been daughters. As Jane Austen might have rumours that Solander was in fact put it, he wanted a Mr Bingley or a Mr Linnaeus' natural child, born a month Darcy for Lisa Stina, rather than a Dr before term. Carl Solander was fourteen Solander subsisting on a modest salary at years older than his young wife. A pious the British Museum. This quest for wealth minister, he may have been more prone to and status meant Lisa-Stina would marry meditations of the soul than of the flesh. Major Carl Frederik Bergencrantz in July And in his place, Linnaeus, an unmarried 1764. He was eighteen years her senior twenty-six-year-old already celebrating the and she had two children by him, but the dynamics of plant sexuality in his Lapland marriage was not a success and she journal, may have kindled a brief passion eventually returned to her family home. which locked him into a lifelong secret with Sadly, she died less than a month before Magdalena. Solander, at the age of 39. Three decades later the prospect of Whatever the exact circumstances, there Solander marrying Lisa Stina and the can be no doubt that Linnaeus and prospect of unwitting incest could have Solander were estranged. Mutual friends provoked a moral crisis in Linnaeus. If this attempted to keep an indirect channel of 16 communication open between the two by known from a German translation of a passing on polite deferential greetings, but Swedish translation. We were at least the past could not be undone. Linnaeus able to offer our English language readers would come to regret, bitterly, their a translation based directly on a Swedish estrangement–especially when the text of 1785. In the final paragraph of his Endeavour returned with a vast botanical letter to Johan Aströmer, two and a half treasure chest of 110 new genera–a years after Solander’s death, Banks collection which by its very existence declared: defined the deficiencies of his Species Plantarum. “This too early loss of a friend, whom I during my more mature years have Solander shared no details with his former loved and whom I will always miss, teacher, but he was a poor correspondent makes me wish to draw a veil over even at the best of times. Perhaps his death, as soon as I have ceased Fabricius offered the most accurate to speak of it. I can never think of it assessment when he wrote to Banks: 'Dr without feeling a mortal pain, for Solander is an exceedingly good, friendly which mankind shudders; but if man, as long as one is with him, but there decency, justice, moderation, is certainly no body, who less remembers benevolence, diligence; if natural as his friends, than he as soon as they are well as acquired ability lays claim to a out of his eyes'. So perhaps this ‘absent place in a better world, then nothing mindedness’ more correctly explains his other than a lack of equal merit on my neglect of his mother, and perhaps even part can prevent us from meeting Linnaeus, rather than thwarted marriage or again” any dark secret regarding his paternity.

Be that as it may, I would like to give Sir Joseph Banks the final word this evening, not on the issue of Solander’s parternity, Dr Edward but on the loss he felt at Solander’s death Duyker and his assessment of his character. I should point out that the original English Thank you version of this letter has been lost and until Per Tingbrand and I published Solander’s collected correspondence, it was only

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