272 Transactions. — Botany. 



the one Great Mind and Author of all ! One of our esteemed 

 British classical poets, Thomson, in writing on this subject, has 

 truly said, — 



" Here wandering oft, 



I solitary court 

 Th' inspiring scene : and meditate the book 

 Of Nature ever open." 



For (as I have said to you on a former occasion) I believe in the 

 universal language of Nature : and it is with feelings such as 

 those that I have not unfrequently detected new and hitherto 

 hidden and unknown novelties ; and when thankfully gather- 

 ing them have sometimes said, solus, or spoken out to them : 

 " Come out of your obscurity, and be seen in society. Come 

 and be introduced to science. Come and add your tribute 

 also, however small, to the further display of the many great 

 and wonderful perfections of Nature ; and, in so doing, more 

 openly fulfil the imperative injunction made to you two thou- 

 sand years ago, in the words of that very ancient song: 

 ' Benedicite universa germinantia in terra Domino : laudate et super- 

 exaltate eum in scecula.' " And then, at such times, I have 

 further thought : How many thousands of years — may be, 

 myriads of ages — since this wee little wondrous delicate and 

 frail yet perfect form first appeared, whether created or evolved ; 

 and how, in spite of all opposing and powerful elemental in- 

 fluences, and cataclysms, and volcanic eruptions, has this little 

 microscopical plant held its own, fructifying, and shedding its 

 tiny seeds in their proper season, and so overcoming and riding 

 triumphant over all opposition and every adverse power ? More- 

 over, when I have also occasionally found a little Crj^togam 

 which I knew to be also a denizen of another part of the globe — 

 it may be of the Antarctic islets furthest South, or of Tasmania, 

 or Australia, or the Islands of Polynesia ; or of the far-off 

 specks in the vast Southern Ocean, the Crozets, or Kerguelen's 

 Land ; of the Cape of Good Hope, or Cape Horn ; of the Peru- 

 vian Andes, or of the European Alps; of the riparian banks of 

 the Amazon, the Thames, the Tweed, or the Shannon ; of the 

 summits of our own Ruahine Mountains, or of the Scottish 

 Highlands — what a further theme for thought ! Where the 

 commencement, the outset, the Alpha, the origin ? or were there 

 originally more than one such ? And, if so, did such embryos, 

 situated at the antipodes of each other, commence life together ? 

 Possibly, or rather very likely, some of the younger portion 

 of my audience here this evening may think these remarks of 

 mine strange, aberrant, or at all events peculiar ; pertaining, it 

 may also be thought, to the gan-ulity of old age, and following 

 as a fitting sequence to my expressed belief in the universal 

 language of Nature. To all such, (if there be any,) I would 

 merely reply that thoughts like those I have touched on are (1) 



