Peter, a celebrated oriental traveller and naturalist, was born in Sweden in 1736. He studied at Göttingen, where he published a dissertation entitled Dubia de Principis Philosophiae Recentioris, which is considered a creditable production. Thence he returned to his own country, and in 1759 he wrote Pensées sur la Liberté Civile, a pamphlet which the rulers of Sweden highly disapproved of. At this time Linnaeus was in the zenith of his fame; and Forskal, through his fondness for natural history, became acquainted with the great naturalist, who recommended him to Frederic V. of Denmark. Here, after obtaining the title of professor at Copenhagen, he was appointed to accompany Niebuhr in an expedition to investigate the antiquities of Arabia and Egypt. But his career was cut short by death at Jerim, July 11, 1763. Though his time was short, and his difficulties very great, yet his account of the vegetation of Egypt and Arabia is a model of the method in which such investigations should be prosecuted. His friend and companion Niebuhr was entrusted with the care of editing his MS., from which he produced a Fauna Orientalis, entitled Descriptiones Animalium, Avium, Amphibiorum, Piscium, Insectorum, Vernarium, quae in illis orient. observavit Petrus Forskal, 1775, 4to. In the same year appeared also an account of the plants of Arabia Felix and of Lower Egypt, under the title of Aegyptiaco-Arabica. This work is far in advance of those of the same nature produced by the adherents of Linnaeus; and is especially remarkable as being one of the first works in which the importance of the relation of vegetation to climate is fully appreciated. By the remarkable assertion that "the specimens of plants being given, the latitude, the elevation of the surface, and the zones of vegetation upon the mountains of a country may be found," Forskal laid the foundation of geographical botany, which has proved of such interest and importance in the hands of Humboldt and other recent scientific travellers.