Biography:

Pehr Kalm (6 March 1716 – 16 November 1779) (in Finland also known as Pietari Kalm and in some English-language translations as Peter Kalm) was a Swedish-Finnish explorer, botanist, naturalist, and agricultural economist. He was one of the most important apostles of Carl Linnaeus.

In 1747 he was commissioned by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to travel to the North American colonies and to bring back seeds and plants that might be useful to agriculture. Among his many scientific accomplishments, Kalm can be credited with the description of Niagara Falls written by a trained scientist; he described this phenomenon along the border of New York (United States) and Canada. In addition, he published the first scientific paper on the North American, 17-year periodical cicada, Magicicada septendecim.

Kalm wrote an account of his travels that was translated into numerous European languages; a 20th-century translation remains in print in English as Peter Kalm's Travels in North America: The English Version of 1770, translated by Swedish-American scholar Adolph B. Benson.