Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/812

752 O K H O L B less silence when Goethe ventured for the first time to claim for himself, in 1820, the merit of having entertained the same idea, or made the discovery, thirty years previously. The German naturalists held their annual meeting at Jena in 1836, and there Kieser publicly bore testimony, from personal know ledge, to the circumstances and dates of Oken s discovery. How ever, in the edition of Hegel s works by IMichelet, Berlin, 1842, there appeared the following paragraph : "The type-bone is the dorsal vertebra, provided inwards with a hole and outwards with processes, every bone being only a modification of it. This idea originated with Goethe, who worked it out in a treatise written in 1785, and published it in his Morphologic, 1820, p. 162. Oken, to whom the treatise ivas communicated, has pretended that tJic idea was his ownprofterty, and has reaped the honour of it. " This accusa tion again called out Oken, who thoroughly refuted it in an able, circumstantial, and temperate statement, in part vii. of the Ms, 1847. Goethe s osteological essay of 1785, the only one he printed in that century, is on a different subject. In the Morphologic of 1820-24 Goethe distinctly declares that he had never published his ideas on the vertebral theory of the skull. He could not, therefore, have sent any such essay to Oken before the year 1807. Oken, in reference to his previous endurance of Goethe s pretensions, states that, "being well aware that his fellow-labourers in natural science thoroughly appreciated the true state of the case, he confided in quiet silence in their judgment. Meckel, Spix, Ulrich, Bojanus, Cams, Cuvier, Geoffrey St Hilaire, Albers, Straus -Durckheim, Owen, Kieser, and Lichtenstein had recorded their judgment in his favour and against Goethe. But upon the appearance of the new assault in Michelet s edition of Hegel he could no longer remain silent." Oken s bold axiom that heat is but a mode of motion of light, and the idea broached in his essay on generation (1805) that "all the parts of higher animals are made up of an aggregate of Infusoria or animated globular monads," are both of the same order as his proposition of the head being a repetition of the trunk, with its vertebra and limbs. Science would have profited no more from the one idea without the subsequent experimental discoveries of ( >ersted and Faraday, or from the other without the microscopical observations of Brown, Schleiden, and Schwann, than from the third notion without the inductive demonstration of the segmental constitution of the skull by Owen. It is questionable, indeed, whether in either case the discoverers of the true theories were excited to their labours, or in any way influenced, by the a priori guesses of Oken ; more probable is it that the requisite researches and genuine deductions therefrom were the results of the correlated fitness of the stage of the science and the gifts of its true cultivators at such particular stage. Oken s real claims to the support and gratitude of naturalists rest on his appreciation of the true relations of natural history to intellectual progress, of its superior teachings to the mere utilitarian applications of observed facts, of its intrinsic dignity as a science. The following is a list of Oken s principal works : Grundriss der Natur- philosophie, der Theorie der Sinne, und der darauf gegriimlcten Classification der Thiere (1802); Die, Zeugung (1805); Abriss der Biologic (1805); Beitriige zur vergleichenden Zoologie, Anatomie, itnd Physiologie (along with Kieser, 1806-7); Ueber die Bedeutung der Schadelknochen (1807) ; Ueber das Universum als Fortsetz- iing des Sinnensystems (1S08) ; Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts, der Finsterniss, tUr Farben, und der Wij.rme (1808) ; Gnmdzeichniing des natiirlichen Systems der rj(1809); Ueber den Werth der Naturgeschichte (1809); Lehrbvch der Natiir- philosophic (1809-11, 2<l ed. 1831, 3d ed. 1843; Eng. tr., Elements of Physio- philosophy, 1847) ; Lehrbuch der Naturgeschichte (1813, 1815, 1825) ; Handbuch der Naturgeschichte zum Gebrauch bei Vorlesungen (1816-20); Naturgeschichte fur Schulen (1821); Esquisse d un Systeme d Anatomie, de Physiologie, et d Histoire Naturelle (1812) ; Allgemeine Naturgeschichte (1833-42, 14 vols.). He also con tributed a large number of papers to the Isis and other journals. (R. O.) OKHOTSK. See MARITIME PROVINCE, vol. xv. p. 548. OLAND, or OELAND, next to Gottland, the largest of the islands belonging to Sweden, stretches for 85 miles along the east coast of the southern extremity of that country, from which it is separated by the Calmar Sound, about 5 miles broad at the narrowest point, and not more than 10 fathoms deep in the central portion. Its greatest breadth does not exceed 8 or 9 miles, and its area is estimated at 510 square miles. Consisting for the most part of Silu rian limestone, and thus forming a striking contrast to the mainland with its granite and gneiss, Gland is further re markable on account of the peculiarities of its structure. Down the west side for a considerable distance runs a limestone ridge, rising usually in terraces, but at times in steep cliffs, to an extreme height of 200 feet ; and along the east side there is a parallel ridge of sand (resting on limestone), never exceeding 90 feet. These ridges, known as the Western and Eastern Landtborgar, are connected to wards the north and the south by belts of sand and heath ; and the hollow between them is occupied by a desolate and almost barren tract : the southern portion or Allvar (form ing fully half of the southern part of the island) presents a surface of bare red limestone scored by superficial cracks and unfathomed fissures, and calcined by the heat refracted from the surrounding heights ; and the northern portion is covered at best with a copse of hazel bushes. Outside the ridges, however, Oland has quite a different aspect, the hillsides being not unfrequently adorned with clumps of trees, and the narrow strip of alluvial coast-land with its cornfields and villages and church towers presenting an appearance of f ruitfulness and prosperity. There are only a few small streams in the island ; and only one lake, Hornsjo, about 3 miles long, deserves to be mentioned. Of the fir woods which once clothed a considerable area in the north the Boda crown -park is the only remnant. Grain, sandstone, and alum are exported from the island, the alum mines at South (Sodra) Mockleby being in fact the most extensive in Sweden, and furnishing 7000 tons per annum. The only town is Borgholm, on the west coast, with one of the finest castle-ruins in Sweden. The town was founded only in 1817, and has not more than 800 or 900 inhabitants ; but the castle, dating at least from the 13th century, was long one of the strongest fortresses and afterwards one of the most stately palaces in the country. The island, which bears the title of a countship, was joined in 1824 to the province of Calmar. Its inhabitants, formerly styled Oningar, and showing con siderable diversity of origin in the matter of speech, local customs, and physical appearance, numbered 22,820 in 1805, 37,270 in 1865, and 37,975 in 1874. From the raid of Ragnar Lodbrok s sons in 775 Oland is frequently mentioned in Scandinavian history, and especially as a battle ground in the wars between Denmark and the northern kingdoms. In the Middle Ages it formed a separate legislative and administra tive unity. See Linne, Olandska och Gothlandska Resa (1741) ; Marryat, One Year in Siveden (Lond., 1862) ; Andersson, Botaniska Besa gcnom Oland (1865). OLAUS MAGNUS or MAGNI (Magnus, i.e., Store, being the family name, and not a personal epithet) was born in 1490 and died at Rome in 1558. Like his elder brother, Johannes Magnus, he obtained several ecclesiastical prefer ments (a canonry at Upsala and at Linkoping), and was employed on various diplomatic services ; but on . the success of the Reformation in Sweden his attachment to the old church led him to accompany his brother into exile. Settling at Rome, he ultimately became his brother s successor in the titular archbishopric of Upsala. Olaus Magnus is best remembered as the author of Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (Rome, 1555), a work which long remained for the rest of Europe the chief authority on Swedish matters and is still a valuable repertory of much curious information in regard to Scandinavian customs and folk-lore. OLBERS, HEINRICH WILHELM MATTHIAS (1758-1840), a distinguished astronomer, was born llth October 1758 at Arbergen, a village near Bremen, where his father was minister. He studied medicine at Gottingen, 1777-80, attending at the same time Kaestner s mathematical course ; and in 1779, while watching by the sick-bed of a fellow- student, he devised a method of calculating cometary orbits which made an epoch in the treatment of the sub ject, and is still extensively used (see COMET, vol. vi. p. 182). The treatise containing this important invention was made public by Baron von Zach under the title Ueber die leichteste und bequemste Methode die Bahn eines Cometen zu berechnen (Weimar, 1797). A table of eighty-seven calculated orbits was appended, enlarged by Encke in the second edition (1847) to 178, and by Galle in the third (1864) to 242. Olbers settled as a physician in Bremen towards the end of 1781, and practised actively for above forty years, finally retiring 1st January 1823. 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