n an
inaugural thesis on the Flora of Gottingen, referring more particularly
to those found in calcareous districts. Shortly afterwards he was
appointed Professor of Botany at Rostock; subsequently he held the same
chair at Breslau; but the latter and larger portion of his scientific
life was spent at Berlin. He practised at Berlin as a physician among an
extensive circle of friends, who had a high opinion of his medical
skill. Although the name of Link fills a large space in the literature
of botany, his mind was not of the highest order, and his contributions
to science are not likely to make a very permanent impression. Still, he
was an energetic, active man, with an observant mind, a retentive
memory, and with considerable power of systematic arrangement. Hence his
works, like those of Linnaeus, have been among the most valuable of the
contributions to the botany of the century in which he lived. Of these,
his "Elementa Philosophiae Botanicae" may be quoted as the most useful.
This work, which was published in 1824, has served as the basis of most
of our manuals and introductions to botany since that period. He devoted
considerable time and attention to the description of new species of
plants, most of which he published in a continuation of Willdenow's
"Species Plantarum." With Count Hoffmansegg, he commenced a Flora of
Portugal, and he also published a memoir on the plants of Greece. He
contributed several valuable papers on physiological botany to the
Transactions of the Natural History Society of Berlin; but he has done
more service for vegetable physiology in his annual reports than in any
other of his writings. They comprise a summary of all that had been
published in botany during the year, accompanied with many valuable
remarks and sound criticisms of his own. In these reports he had to
defend himself and others from the heavy artillery directed against them
by Schleiden, who, whilst claiming for himself a large margin for
liberty of opinion, is most unscrupulous and pertinaciously offensive
towards those who differ from him. In these literary contests, however,
Link showed that the experience of above fifty years had not been lost
upon him, and he was not unfrequently more than a match for the vigor
and logic of his youthful and more precipitate adversary. According to
custom, a funeral oration was pronounced over his grave; but
unfortunately the clergyman selected being a strictly orthodox person,
and not b