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THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 

 Delivered at the Annual General Meeting, July 28th, 1882. 



By T. Charters White, M.R.C.S., L.D.S., &c. 



It is again my duty to offer you my warmest congratulations on 

 the continued prosperity of the Quekett Microscopical Club, as 

 illustrated by the satisfactory Report just read. It must always be 

 pleasing to those so intimately connected with its progress as now 

 surround me to contemplate this prosperity, and the ever-increas- 

 ing prestige which the Club holds in the estimation of the micro- 

 scopical public ; a prestige which is richly deserved by the stimulus 

 and encouragement it has given to microscopical pursuits, especially 

 amongst the younger members of the community ; during the period 

 of its existence— as from a centre, its influence has radiated to the 

 provinces and even to our colonial possessions, and every member 

 passing from its vicinity to other and distant localities has become 

 a fresh centre of influence in exciting interest in microscopical 

 observation. Should any future history of the microscope be written, 

 we may certainly expect, without any wish to depreciate the work 

 of other and kindred societies, that the important part which our 

 Club has played during the 17 years of its existence, will find a 

 ready recognition at the hands of the historian ; and if we cannot 

 point to so much good and original work as we could have wished, 

 and the absence of which we regret, still the Club has fostered and 

 encouraged that love of microscopical observation which may yet 

 culminate in most valuable results when the occasion arises which 

 demands them. There are very few young minds that are not at 

 once struck with an intense interest in peering into the minute 

 world revealed in the microscope ; no voyager in strange lands can 

 be more fascinated by the fresh and wondrous sights which arrest 

 his attention than is the novice in microscopical observation with 

 the innumerable forms of beauty, symmetry and grace which lay in 

 the microcosm at his very feet. 'J his intense interest leads him on 

 with a burning desire to know more ; we seem to hear the ringing 



