WCLLFAM CAKKUTHPJKS 258 



CiiiTufchers delivered an address (.Tourn. Bot. 1896, p. 2G), — was placed 

 under liis special care : his first important i:)aper (on Lepidodendrou 

 and Calamites), published in this Journal for 18SG (pp. 347-348), was 

 largely based on material in this collection and in the Geological 

 Department, to which he had free access. Other ] apers lapidly 

 succeeded, both in this Journal and in the Geolofjical Mof/azine-, 

 in the Linnean Society's Transactions (xxvi. G75-708 ; 1870) he 

 published an im[)ortant monograph on fossil Cycadean Sttms : this 

 was followed by his election to the Royal Society in the ensuing year. 

 It must always be matter for regret that the supj)lementary volume 

 to Lindley and Mutton's Fossil Flora, which it was understood 

 Carruthers had undertaken in connexion with the reissue of tliat work 

 in 1872, w^as never carried into effect; it would usefully have brought 

 together the invaluable information which must now be sought in 

 his papei's scattered through various periodicals. 



In relation to this side of Carruthers's work it may be mentioned 

 that in 18G9 he delivered at the Koyal Institution a lecture on " The 

 Cryptogamic Forests of the Coal Period," which was published 

 in the Geolo(jical Mar/azine for that 3'^ear. In 188G he delivered 

 to the Biological Section of the British Association, of which section 

 he was President, an important address on " The Age of some Exist- 

 ing Species of Plants," which is printed, with additions by the 

 author, in this Journal for the same year (p. 309) ; a similar subject 

 was treated in his Presidential Address to the Linnean Society at its 

 anniversary meeting in 1890 — " The Earl}^ History of some of the 

 species of Plants nowconstitutuig a portion of the Flora of England." 

 In each of these addresses the evidence adduced was such as to show 

 that the plants of the glacial period " exhibit the same characters, 

 in that reduction or modilication wliich their living descendants 

 possess," and the problem thus presented to ihe supporters of the 

 Darwinian 'theory has never yet been fully met. " The relation of 

 our existing vegetation to preceding floras," he said, in his remarks 

 introductory to the former, " has frequently been made the subject 

 of ex])Osition, but to handle it requires a more lively imagination 

 than I can lay claim to, or perhaps than it is desiiable to employ 

 in any strictly scientific investigation." While thus caulious in 

 accepting theories or conclusions based on what appeared to him 

 insufficient evidence, Carruthers, as a man of science, was intolerant 

 of attempts to defend revealed religion without adequate scientific 

 knowledge ; his letters in the Times with reference to Mosses and 

 Geoloc/i/ by Dr. Samuel Kinns — a work published in 1872 which had 

 a large circulation — sufficiently indicate his attitude in that direction. 

 In 1861 Carruthers became a Fellow of the Linnean Society, of 

 which at the time of his death he was almost the oldest member. 

 He took a keen interest in the affairs of the Society, and served 

 on the Council for various ]jeriods of three years from 1866 and as 

 A'ice-President for similar periods from 1877 ; from 1886-90 he was 

 President. In 1888 it fell to his lot to preside over the arrange- 

 ments for the centenary of the Society, which occurred that year, 

 and in his address he summarised its history during the hundred 

 years of its existence : a full account of the proceedings on the 



