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THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



Delivered at the Annual General Meeting, 25th February, 



1887. 



By A. D. Michael, F.L.S., F.R.M.S., &c. 



It may be objected that the subject which I have chosen for my 

 address to-night is not microscopical ; this is to a certain extent 

 true, but the great use of the microscope is to investigate nature ; 

 for, although it is possible for man to manufacture articles so fine 

 in their structure and markings that the very highest powers of our 

 favourite instrument are required for their examination, yet the 

 vast majority of his works are so coarse that the assistance of any 

 considerable amplification is quite unnecessary. It is practically 

 for nature alone that the microscope is used, and I do not think 

 that I am going too far if I say that it is applied twenty times 

 upon biological objects for once that it is employed on all others 

 taken together ; therefore, no subject which is of deep and general 

 interest to biologists can be inappropriate for discussion at a 

 gathering of workers with the microscope such as the present. It 

 may also be objected that the subject is old ; so are most other 

 subjects ; what there may be new above the sun we are not told, 

 but we are credibly informed that there is not anything new under 

 it; and novelty is scarcely expected in a President's address, it is 

 usually a review of something that has been done, either of the 

 work of the year in the particular branch or of something else : 

 new discoveries are probably more fitly reserved for papers, where 

 others who are not members of the particular society are more 

 likely to look for them. But again it may be said, and justly said, 

 that this question is not only old, but that it has been discussed 

 and treated of so fully and exhaustively by the very ablest men 

 that science possesses, both in this and in every other civilized 

 country, and even in every nook and corner of each country, that 

 it is utterly hopeless to bring forward any new facts of importance 

 without fresh discoveries ; or even to put the old facts, or any of 



