HASSELQWST, FREDERIC, a Swedish naturalist, and pupil of Linnaeus, was born at Tornvalla, in East Gothland, on the 3rd of January 1722, old style. His father, Andrew Hasselquist, a poor curate, having died young, without having made any provision for his family, his wife's brother, a clergyman of the name of Poutiu, took charge of young Hasaelquist's education, and placed him with his own children in the school of Linkoping. After the death of his benefactor, Hasselquist was transferred to the university of Upsal, where he entered in 1741. He there acquired a taste for natural history, became a pupil of the great Linnaeus, and was led very parti cularly to apply himself to the study of the properties of plants. An inaugural thesis, called Vireo Plantarum,' which appeared in 1747, evinced him to be a young man of a strong original turn of mind, and worthy of his master. He showed how puerile were the notions at that time entertained regarding the medical properties of many plants, how much the whole of vegetable materia medico stood in need of reformation ; and he pointed out a philosophical mode of investigating the facts connected with it, by insisting upon the old doctrine of like forms, like virtues.' This truth, which is one of the most important among those connected with the practical application of botany to useful purposes, had been so obscured by want of science in the age immediately preceding Liunmus, that it had ceased to be a point of belief, and was rather set down as a fanciful speculation of forgotten theorists. Hasselquist however maintained its accuracy, and with so much skill that he may be said to have established it upon a solid foundation, from which it could never afterwards be shaken.
This, and his general proficiency in other branches of science, procured Hasselquist some of tho royal stipends provided for travelling students, and lie was thus eventually enabled to carry into execution a favourite project of visiting the Holy Land for tho laudable purpose of investi gating its natural history. Having sailed from Stockholm in August 1747, he proceeded to Smyrna, thence to Egypt, and afterwards to the Holy Land. His constitution sunk however under the exertions of his enterprising spirit, and he died at Smyrna, on his return home wards, on the 9th of February 1752, in the thirty-first year of his age. Tho result of his investigations of these, at that time little known countries, was r .n to the world by Linnmus in the year 1757, under the name of 'It i Pala:isthmus. This work showed that the author had combined with energy and industry great attainments in the sciences of his day. It is rich in observations upon the quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, mollusca, plants, minerals, and materia medica of the countries he visited, and is to this day a standard work of reference. His science was not the flimsy, superficial, and unin telligible gossip of most modern travellers, but the sound matter-of fact, precise, and definite information of which use may be made so long as science endures, whatever changes it may undergo in its forms. His name is perpetuated in botany by having been given to a curious genus of Esyptian Apiacem.