| In 1748, Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus sent his student, Peter Kalm, to North America, where Kalm employed Linnaeus' new binomial nomenclature system. Kalm kept a journal of his travels, which he published in 1753. His journal provides insight into the techniques and methodology of eighteenth-century naturalists, and presents a distinctive view of colonial North America. Keeping with a goal of making practical discoveries, Linnaeus instructed Kalm not only to look for plants but also to study the local economies. Kalm received aid from Swedish settlers, Quaker naturalists, and the French colonial government of Canada. He collected a wealth of information on the physical appearance, growth, environment, and the commercial uses of trees and plants, and proposed a tentative hypothesis on the competitive propagation of trees. Many plants provided colonists traditional herbal remedies. Colonists ate well and generally gathered plentiful harvests, but suffered from malaria and widespread tooth loss. Those born in the colonies rarely lived as long as European settlers. Kalm possessed many of the latest scientific instruments, such as a practical thermometer, but his journal shows that instrumentation was underdeveloped, and he did not rely upon any mathematical techniques. Kalm learned techniques for predicting the weather that were crucial for agriculture, and gathered data about climate change. Kalm's observations on geology were solid, and he sought data to buttress theories that supported acceptance of the Biblical Flood, although the science of the time was insufficient to explain what Kalm found. Kalm categorized animals as pests, sources of food, or curiosities. He disdained Native Americans, but described in detail the lives and accomplishments of the Swedish, Dutch, English, and French colonists. Settlers informed Kalm that only the threat of attack from French Canada prevented the settlers in the British colonies from declaring independence. In 1750, Kalm returned to Sweden with botanical findings on 700 North American plants; at least 90 were new discoveries. These were sufficient to cause Linnaeus to delay the publication of his Species plantarum until 1753. Linnaeus named the mountain laurel genus Kalmia latifolia in recognition of Kalm's contribution to natural philosophy. |
