THE STORY No. 8 | FIELDWORK – THE LINNAEAN WAY
Writing and Drawing during Naturalist Journeys: Part 2

This Essay is part of the long-term research and publicise project

THE STORY | FIELDWORK THE LINNAEAN WAY

The global multidisciplinary project in Natural & Cultural History.

This second essay, dedicated to paper, writing, and drawing, researched through extant journals, correspondence, artworks, and physical objects within the Linnaean network, aims to unveil further realities concerning these vital tasks for an 18th-century naturalist. For example, ocean-going sailing ships, post-yachts, or packet boats were essential for transporting parcels, letters, boxes, and other items across various bodies of water during this period. Although direct evidence of the specific boats or sea routes employed by members of this network remains limited, it is undoubtedly true that this was one common method among several for sending smaller goods – including some glass and wooden containers for the specimens listed. From a cosmopolitan perspective, natural history illustrations and letter writing exemplify the extensive geographical network of contacts. 

This silk painting from a Chinese Album of Birds (1761) by Yu Sheng and Zhang Weibang, depicting a common crane, offers an interesting comparison with Pehr Osbeck’s observations of birds shortly after arriving in the Canton area. (Courtesy: Album of Birds vol. 1, leaf 7. 1761. National Palace Museum, Taipei, Public Domain).

Pehr Osbeck (1723-1805) noted in his description of the country from 2nd to 8th September in 1751: ‘The painting of this country, representing men and their employments, trees, plants, flowers, fruit, birds, and the like, by their lively colours compensate for the want of art.’ Furthermore, Johann Reinhold Forster (1729-1798), who translated Osbeck’s journal into English in 1771 from a German edition, continued in an adjoining note regarding Chinese artwork: ‘Some years ago the Chinese were very defective in their drawings: but of late, since they have had opportunities of seeing the performances of European artists, they are much improved, and particularly in perspective, with which they were before perfectly unacquainted.’ Both these comments are clear examples of the idea of “European superiority”, even if Chinese paintings of birds and other natural history motifs already had many centuries-long traditions at this time. The common crane depicted here is of a typical Chinese design, but with notable similarities in the posture of birds from 17th-century European zoological illustrations. One may even conclude that Forster had such a painting in his mind when making comments on later years’ improved perspective in artworks. On the other hand, even if Osbeck’s journal included various written notes about birds, no such illustrations were part of his final publication.

Another individual who had numerous long-term contacts following his natural history journey was Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1828); this may be because he lived until 1828 or nearly 50 years after his nine-year journey in the 1770s. Perhaps his most significant relationship was his correspondence with Japan regarding flora and fauna, which gave him a unique position for a European natural historian – passing himself off as Dutch – to visit Japan. During his time in Japan, he had to make requests to Japanese authorities to collect plants. Overall, his contacts differed from those in other countries visited by the Linnaean network by being more formal. The circumstances under which Thunberg continued his official correspondence after leaving Japan further deepened his knowledge of Japanese flora. For instance, he received books, glasses, insects, and other items through these parcels and boxes. Such shipments – whether books in paper parcels, glass bottles kept in wooden boxes, or other forms of packaging – were transported over sea routes from one continent to another, often taking many months or even years to reach the recipient, sometimes via last-leg post yachts, post coaches, or post riders. Information about boxes, glass bottles, bundles, dry skins, or damp cloths used as protection when combined with paper materials can shed light on some experiences within the Linnaean network. The primary aim was to preserve natural history specimens for extended periods – keeping plants, seeds, dried fish, and other items as fresh and undamaged as possible across various climates, whether damp or dry. 

Packet boats were also part of the passenger traffic, which Thunberg described in his journal after returning to Holland and finalising his engagement with the Dutch East India Company in 1778. In December this year, he noted: ‘I travelled to Rotterdam, and from thence farther on to Helvoet Sluys [Hellevoetsluis]. Here contrary winds prevented my passage over for several days, and when afterwards I was able at last to set sail, in company with several other passengers, in the English Packet-boat Royal, such a heavy storm arose, and at last contrary winds, that we were driven a great way out of our course, and landed at a place a great distance from London, from whence we were obliged to go by land to the Metropolis.’ Additionally, for the very last leg of his nine-year journey back to his home country, in March 1779, he took a packet boat from Stralsund to Ystad in southernmost Sweden.

In a letter from the former student of Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Mårten Kähler (1728-1773) – sent from Bordeaux to Uppsala on 28 August 1753 – he, among many matters, mentioned the troublesome passage through the English Channel and how it affected his personal belongings and collections: ‘…when the waves washed over the cabin, from which my glass [bottles], in which I kept Polyps and Sertulariae [marine animals] which were broken, my herbs, put in their papers, floated on the water, which rose to a height of 2 ells, my clothes and linens were so spoilt by the water that some are wholly unusable, but the worst of all is that my books were totally destroyed…  Initially, Linnaeus had far-reaching plans for Kähler to make an expedition to the Cape, but this was never realised. Therefore, he decided to send his student to Italy, where he hoped Kähler might be helpful in natural science. He went from Denmark and France to Napoli and Sardinia. The results were meagre because his existence was problematic from a health and scientific point of view throughout the four years before his return to his home country in 1757.

The naturalist and botanical illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was a forerunner of the Linnaean network. Nevertheless, she can still offer practical insights from her journeys to the Dutch colony of Suriname from 1699 to 1701. The portrait, circa 1700, by Jacob’s Houbraken (1698-1780), shows her with her naturalist discoveries and scientific mission, draped in a deep red mantle and a fashionable blue gown with a laced, open-fronted bodice. (Wikimedia Commons: Public Domain).

Maria Sibylla Merian’s hand-coloured engraving of a pineapple and cockroaches, for Plate 1 in her publication Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam (1719) – where she also noted that this insect ‘spoiled their [the inhabitants] wool, linen, food and drinks.’ (Courtesy: Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, US).

A problem, as the Linnaeus apostle Daniel Rolander (1723-1793) mentioned in his journal in 1755 while doing fieldwork observations in the area. Not only that, he on repeated occasions referenced her work, for instance on 25 June: ‘Madame Merian, who spent a year here investigating the insects of this land…’, but Rolander had the same issues with cockroaches as she had had more than half a century earlier. On 7 July, his notes hinted at the insects in general terms as well as regarding his personal belongings. Plate 1, Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, 1719.

Four of Carl Linnaeus’ former students might instead share ideas from their journal observations on how they applied earlier knowledge from their youth in conservation techniques. Christopher Tärnström (1711-1746), repeatedly noted during his journey aboard the Swedish East India Company ship, on 18 September 1746 in the South China Sea: ‘I was given a worm which they had found in our ship’s bread or Swedish rusks. It was rather big in relation to the ones I had seen heretofore. Therefore I kept it in spiritus vini…’ This type of spirit of wine seems to have been commonly used, as Pehr Kalm (1716-1779) also recorded, on 22 August 1748, while onboard an Atlantic Ocean ship: ‘…another small fish; and an unusual marine insect; item a flying fish: I immediately laid all this in spiritus vini to be preserved, as none of them was yet damaged…’ His travelling account interestingly describes the purchase of the same liquid in London just before the Atlantic voyage, which, alongside similar expenses during the journey, provides unique insights into preparations for preserving fish, turtles, snakes, and so on.

• Norway, 4 January 1748 ‘1/2 of French schnapps, to keep rare fishes in’.
• London, 25 July 1748: ‘A bottle, to keep Spiritus vini in’ & Spiritus vini, to be used during the sea voyage, put the rarest fishes and marine animals in’. 
• Philadelphia, 27 March 1750. ‘Glass bottle to have lizards and frogs in’ & ‘Cork for the bottle’.
• Philadelphia, 6 April 1750. ‘A bladder, to have over the bottle, there within Spiritus vini and natural specimens’ & ‘A glass bottle, to put the [Zöband?] snake in’ & ‘Rum for it’.
• Philadelphia, 8 May 1750. ‘A cask, to keep turtles in’ & ‘Rum, a quarter’.
• Pennsylvania, 7 July 1750 [for his assistant Lars Jungström’s expenses]. ‘A bottle, to keep a snake in’ & ‘Rum, 1 quarter there to’.
• Philadelphia, 9 January 1751. ‘Rum to put a mole in’.
• Philadelphia, 31 January 1751. ‘A cask to have turtles in’ & ‘Rum for it’.

All these glass containers were fragile, meaning that he must have kept them in barrels or wooden boxes – various expenses for such wooden cases were referred to on and off in the account – for secure protection among his natural history collection during transports on ships, as well as horses and carriages for the long-distance homeward leg.

Livorno, illustrated by an unknown artist from the 1770s to the 1790s, had been a prominent harbour for international trade for centuries. Here, the artist depicts Swedish and British ships at anchor in the road. (Courtesy: British Library, Maps K.Top.80.13.g. Public Domain).

A few naturalists and a patron in the Linnaean network can be linked to this harbour for reasons of commerce or for using the coastal city as a strategic location for letters and communication. Livorno [Leghorn] was regarded as an enlightened city where Europeans often visited or stayed for extended periods. The merchant Claes Grill (1705-1767) was one of the individuals who had an address through associated merchants in the city, even if he did not reside there himself. His wealth, his membership in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and his role as director of the Swedish East India Company – an engagement that clearly made him less restricted than most regarding imports from China or India –highlight his significance. As a ship owner of the Company, he was particularly involved. Additionally, he ran a linen and sailcloth manufactory in Stockholm, indicating a substantial interest in the textile trade both locally and globally. His merchant house, Carlos & Claes G, traded with hundreds of similar firms across Europe during the 1730s to 1750s; one notable branch was the transit trade from England to the Mediterranean. No definitive evidence of fabric or other wares, imported or exported via Livorno by him, has been found, though such trade was probably common. One of his connections to Livorno is evident in a lengthy letter from Fredrik Hasselquist (1722-1752) to Linnaeus, dated in Smyrna on 18 August 1751, where Hasselquist expresses regret that he never received two letters sent from Linnaeus. He also mentions: ‘… I wish that my letters, which I have sent from several places, and the collections which I sent from Egypt, have had a more fortunate destiny… In particular, it would be a favour, if a chest with seeds and other natural specimens, the one I sent from Cairo on 2 February this year, and two Cycomori, which I sent on the 27th of the same month, could arrive safely; the whole lot is sent over Livorno to Mr [Claes] Grill’s address within Raguenau & C.’ ‘Veduta della Città e Porto di Livorno’

Setting out on a lengthy exploration remained tempting for Johan Peter Falck (1732-1774) during his time in St Petersburg. Despite his deteriorating health, he accepted the opportunity to lead one of the Imperial Academy of Sciences’ natural history expeditions. Several students assisted Falck — including a taxidermist, a huntsman, an artist, and from July 1770, the botanist Johan Gottlieb Georgi (1729-1802). Other travellers in the complex network of Imperial expeditions included naturalists Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811), Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin (1709-1755), and Johann Anton Güldenstädt (1745-1781). This particular well-preserved pencil drawing was created by one of these network members, the Baltic German naturalist Johann Anton Güldenstädt (or an assistant), who was the first European to conduct a systematic study of the Caucasus – of a Caucasian mountain goat with a linear scale. (First published in Aleksandrovskaya... 2011/2014, p. 187).

Although few other 18th-century ships, including those with natural historians on board, returned to Europe with more specimens than James Cook’s (1728-1779) first voyage in the summer of 1771, they brought back around 30,300 plants comprising 3,607 species, of which 110 genera and 1,400 species had not, from a European viewpoint, been previously identified or classified. Additionally, they returned with large quantities of birds, molluscs, fish, and shells. This team of botanists, artists, and others appears to have worked under remarkably organised conditions for Joseph Banks (1743-1820). The wealthy Banks is depicted shortly after the voyage in 1771-73, dressed in a fur-trimmed velvet coat, bathing waistcoat, linen shirt, and breeches. The portrait also underscores the significance of the notes taken during the lengthy expedition – which, alongside the globe, hold a prominent place in the painting. (Courtesy: National Portrait Gallery, London. NPG 5868. Oil on canvas by Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792). Public Domain).

One crucial factor in the success of the collection work on James Cook’s first voyage was the botanist Daniel Solander’s (1733-1782) extensive experience in classification and organising collections. This experience began during his student years when he assisted Carl Linnaeus with the Cabinet of Natural History at Drottningholm Castle in 1752, followed by similar work in Sweden during the 1750s. After a few years in England, Solander had started his role as a plant categoriser at the British Museum in February 1763, or more than five years before the circumnavigation. He maintained this position for the rest of his life, apart from periods of travel. 

Catalogues of Solander’s natural history manuscripts and letters kept in British collections provide some enlightening evidence of classification work aboard the ship Endeavour. His botanical manuscripts housed at the British Museum (Natural History) reveal specific details about how the specimens were preserved in the best condition during the nearly three-year sea voyage. This includes: ‘Daniel Solander made descriptions, in Latin, of the plants collected on the voyage. The plants collected by Joseph Banks and Solander at each landfall were placed in chests with damp cloths to keep them fresh while Solander studied and described them, and Sydney Parkinson (1745-1771) drew them.’ Maintaining the dampness of such cloths must have required ongoing effort from some assistants or servants along the predominantly warm latitudes of the route. The catalogue of “Plantae Novae Hollandiae” [Australis] from 1770 also shows that dried samples were stored in numbered bundles when taken back to England. Another practical aspect of collecting large quantities of plants, insects, and skins of wild mammals, frogs, and fish was to implement systematic arrangements each day. One method used by Solander involved paper slips – which, to some extent, were already in use during the voyage and further refined by him in the herbarium of the British Museum – so that each specimen had a detailed description, including the locality where it was found, noted on the slip.

Depiction of the 1772 expedition to Iceland – with Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander, et al. – as they journeyed towards the volcano Hekla. Visiting and documenting volcanic activity, particularly at Hekla, became the expedition's primary scientific goal. This is one of the watercolours created by one of the accompanying artists, John Cleveley the Younger (1747-1786). Several Icelandic manuscxxxripts and pieces of literature were also brought back by the expedition. Uno von Troil (1746-1803) depicted their journey through the literary work “Letters on Iceland,” published in 1777; it is the only documentation, including drawings of various events, of the expedition that was published. The literary work gained attention quite quickly and was translated into several languages. (Courtesy: The British Library BL Add MS. 15511, f.48, part of).

It is also worth noting that land-based telescopes appeared to be very rare, as no evidence has been found in journals or correspondence within the extensive Linnaean network. The absence of such an instrument – or binoculars, which became more common in the mid-19th century – made it more difficult to study and gain a comprehensive view of vast mountain ranges or steppes, especially for discovering natural history species from a distance. Another concern was security and the limitations of not being able to see dangers from afar, including sudden weather changes, groups of potentially hostile native inhabitants, or encounters with mammals like polar bears or rhinoceroses. The travelling missionaries often recorded weather and temperature, either due to instructions for the journey or, in some cases, personal interest. These repeated entries – day after day – in journals, diaries, or letters sometimes also included notes on suitable clothing for hot, warm, cool, or freezing climates, along with other comments related to comfort, discomfort, and preparations for different temperatures. During these travels, which could last from three months up to nine years, Celsius and Fahrenheit thermometers were mainly employed.

Sources: 

• Agnarsdóttir, Anna, ed., Sir Joseph Banks, Iceland and the North Atlantic 1772-1820. Journals, Letters and Documents, London, 2016.
• Aleksandrovskaya, O.A., Shirokova, V.A.,Romanova, O.S. & Ozerova, N.A, Альбом­исследование «М. В. Ломоносов и академические экспедиции XVIII века», Moscow 2011/2014 (p. 187).
• Diment, Judith A., & Wheeler, Alwyne, Catalogue of the natural history manuscripts and letters by Daniel Solander (1733-1782), or attributed to him, in British collections. Archives of Natural History 1984 Vol. II Part 3, pp. 457-488 (& quote p. 459).
• Güldenstädt, Johann Anton, Reisen durch Rußland und im Caucasischen Gebürge. Russisch-Kayserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, St. Petersburg, vol. 1, 1787 & vol. 2, 1791.
• Hansen, Lars, ed., The Linnaeus Apostles – Global Science & Adventure, eight volumes, London & Whitby, 2007-2012 (The journals of the Linnaeus Apostles).
• Hansen, Viveka, Textilia Linnaeana – Global 18th Century Textile Traditions & Trade, London 2017.  
• Hasselquist, Fredrik, ‘Brev till och från Fredrik Hasselquist.’ Bref och skrifvelser af och till Carl von Linné, 1:7. Upsala 1917, pp.1-68. (quote p. 52).
• Iwao, S. ‘C.P. Thunbergs ställning i japansk kulturhistoria.’ Svenska Linnésällskapets Årsskrift 1953, pp. 135-147.
• Kalm. P.ehr, Pehr Kalms Amerikanska reseräkning, published by Svenska Litteratursällskapet in Finland, Helsingfors 1956. (Translation & information related to bottles, Spiritus vini, etc, pp. 21-71).
• Merian, Maria Sibylla, Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, 1719. (Plate I & description).
• The Linnaean Correspondence. Letter: L1625. Mårten Kähler to Carl Linnaeus, 28 August 1753. 
• Troil, Uno von, Bref rörande en resa till Island, Uppsala 1777. 
• Troil, Uno von, ‘Letters on Iceland’, Voyages and Travels in all parts of the World, ed. John Pinkerton, pp. 621-734, London 1808.