XX PBOCEEDINGS OF THE 



It has been most gratifying to me personally, and I am confident 

 you have all participated in the feeling, to hail the return amongst 

 us of one who was formerly associated with us, but whose im- 

 portant and extensive labours in physics have called his attention 

 away, for many years, from those studies which are more parti- 

 cularly ours. The close connexion of General Sabine with the 

 Eoyal Society, of which he occupies an office next to the highest, 

 and the great and deserved influence he possesses in its councils, 

 have been of especial value in bringing about that closer connexion 

 which now exists between us. 



I cannot refer to the appearance of the last part of our Trans- 

 actions without the utterance of a grateful recognition of an 

 unprecedented act of liberality on the part of one of our most 

 zealous and distinguished Fellows. The exquisite illustrations of 

 Dr. Hooker's elaborate paper on the Balanophorece, the expense 

 of which amounts, as you will see by the financial statement, to 

 nearly £90, are presented to the Society by the joint liberality of 

 the author and his friend and coadjutor in so many meritorious 

 works, Dr. Thomson of Calcutta. The close alliance and friend- 

 ship of two such kindred minds, shown in their joint endurance of 

 the perils and hardship of travel, no less than in their combined 

 services in the cause of their favourite science, forms a most inter- 

 esting example of the influence of the study of nature in awakening 

 and perpetuating the kindliest and most harmonizing principles of 

 the human mind. Of the paper itself, I cannot of course ofibr 

 any opinion of my own. I understand that it is one of the greatest 

 interest, and I know it is the result of long and profound research. 

 Amongst the points upon which Dr. Hooker particularly dwells, 

 and which, if confirmed, are of the most importance, are the ex- 

 planation of the anomalous vascular system, and the reduction of 

 this to the exogenous type, — the history of the mode of parasitism 

 in these remarkable plants — the discovery of an embryo in several 

 species — the view taken of the ovule as reduced to an embryonal 

 sac — the proof of the close resemblance between the BalanophorecB 

 ■ and Ounnera, and tracing the variations of the species and their 

 immense geographical distribution in both longitude and latitude. 

 Some of these points are, I understand, the subject of controversy, 

 and the proof is considered a matter of much importance both to 

 the physiological and systematic botanist. 



On a comparison of our present condition with that of the last 

 anniversary, I may on almost all points offer the Society un- 

 mingled congratulations. The accession of no less than thirty-one 

 Fellows, the favourable aspect of our financial account, in which 



