240 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



spores free from threads ; and then to the Ferns and some small 

 orders, all having antheridia, or male organs, and archegonia, or 

 female, with a distinct elongated axis, and true leaves, and thus 

 making a second great section — Acrogens ; the whole forming the 

 great division of Cryptogamous plants, or those without evident 

 flowers, but more particularly characterised by the fruit being spori- 

 ferous. 



We then pass to the Phoenogamous, or flowering plants, in which 

 male fertilizing^grains or pollen are produced ; these falling on the 

 stigma throw out a tube, which passes through its tissue and reaches 

 the germinal vesicle of the ovule, and each ovule, being fecundated, 

 becomes a perfect seed. 



Now every part of every plant is worth investigation, and it is 

 only by means of the microscope that we can obtain a true know- 

 ledge of their structure. 



As interesting objects, I may refer to the pollen — the cuticle, or 

 skin covering leaves, with its stomata or breathing pores — the 

 woody tissue and fibro -vascular-bundles, and the various modifica- 

 tions in the form of hairs and seeds. 



Passing next to the Animal Kingdom, we find the lowest animals, 

 like the lowest plants, are of the simplest structure, and hence are 

 named Protozoa, or first animals, the first group of which is termed 

 Rhizopoda ; and, as a type of them, we may take Amoeba, a little 

 gelatinous speck often found gliding on aquatic plants, constantly 

 changing its form by pushing out portions of the sarcode of which 

 it consist. There is no mouth, and the food is simply pushed 

 through its walls by their gelatinous material, as it were, flowing 

 over it ; the internal organs are a solid nucleus, and contain con- 

 tractile spaces, while they reproduce by budding. A few others are 

 invested in a thin flexible shell, by which we pass to the Forami- 

 nifera, enclosed in a firmer shell, built up of chambers which com- 

 municate by small apertures, and filled with sarcode. The loose 

 sand shaken out of sponges usually contains a variety of these 

 elegant organisms, allied to which, and even surpassing them in 

 beauty, are — 



2. The Polycystina, more minute, but eminently beautiful, and 

 dredged up from the ocean bed ; or found fossil, as in the Barba- 

 does deposit. 



3. The Sponges, whose skeleton consists of a network of horny 

 fibres, strengthened by flint spicules presenting an infinite variety of 

 shapes, the whole being enveloped in gelatinous sarcode. 



