Poverty drove him to Holland for his degree as doctor of medicine. He found a friend there in a Dutch banker, Clifford, who enabled him to publish many works, in one of which he made known his classification of plants. At this time he visited London, and when walking on a common near the City saw furze for the first time. He was so attracted by the golden bloom of the flower that he fell down on his knees and admired it. He tried in vain to cultivate it in Sweden. On his return to Stockholm, he gained a reputation as a physician, but gave up his profession to be professor of botany in the University where he had studied. He attracted students from all parts, and gained a world-wide reputation, his class increasing from five to hundreds. He was made a noble, and when he died, aged seventy-one years, the King spoke from the throne of his death as being a national calamity. Another man of whom Sweden is justly proud is Baron Johan Jakob Berzelius, one of the greatest of modern chemists. He is said to rank next to Linnæus in science in Sweden. He introduced a set of symbols on which those in use at the present day are based. The science of chemistry owes a great deal to the accuracy and extent of his researches. It is the wonder of many how he could accomplish so much as he did. He had, like Linnæus, the gift of perseverance. Another well-known Swede is Alfred Nobel, who was born in Stockholm in 1833, and died in 1896. When young, he went with his father to Russia to help him in the manufacture of submarine mines and torpedoes. He took out patents for a gasometer and for an apparatus for measuring liquid. He will, however, always be remembered as the inventor of dynamite. Many precious lives were lost in the process. It was finally produced as dynamite gum in 1876. When one thinks of dynamite, immediately there are brought to the mind war, with all its horrors, and anarchism, with its bombs and nefarious practices; but it has been one of the greatest aids to man in his engineering triumphs. By its aid mountains have been tunnelled and rocks under the water more easily removed. To show how extensively it is being used, in 1870 the total world’s output did not exceed eleven tons. At the present day it annual tonnage is to be reckoned by the hundred thousand. Works for its manufacture are all over the world. Alfred Nobel left a large fortune, and so arranged that a large sum should be set aside for five annual prizes of £8,000 each for men who had distinguished themselves in science, literature, and the promotion of peace. Men from all parts of the world can compete, and the awards are made by a committee of Scandinavians.