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Hbbrese to the fIDembere of tbe Batb 

 fIDicroecopical Societij* 



By the Rev. E. T. Stubbs, President. 



AFTER a few prelirninary remarks, Mr. Stubbs said .• — 

 " The first object that we have in belonging to a Micro- 

 scopical Society is work — actual work. It is not to bring 

 people together for the sake or showing them marvellous sights, 

 and things they have never seen or dreamed of before ; it is not 

 that they should open their mouths in stupid amazement, or that we 

 should fill them wfth ignorant wonder, and thus gather to ourselves 

 a few moments of empty, unreasoning applause. But it is for the 

 sake of work ; for the sake of seeing more ourselves ; and there- 

 fore of learning how little we really know as we advance in the 

 study of those works of nature in the animal, vegetable, or mineral 

 world, of which so small a part is really known. 



There is an enormous untrodden field lying open for fresh 

 explorers and for new discoveries, and we may render our humble 

 aid in the work. 



Just consider for how brief a period the microscope has for any 

 purpose of real and accurate research been in the hands of man. 



It is, I believe, to Roger Bacon, who flourished in the 13th 

 century, that mankind is indebted to the first conception of the 

 microscope. Roger Bacon was one of the most eminent men 

 which England has ever produced ; he was a native of Somerset, 

 and was born at Ilchester in 12 14. This is a quotation from one 

 of his works :— ' We can give such figures to transparent bodies, 

 and disperse them in such order respecting the eye and the 

 objects, that the rays shall be refracted and bent towards any 

 place we please. And thus from an incredible distance we may 

 read the smallest letter, and may mark the smallest particles of 

 dust and sand, by reason of the greatness of the angle under 

 which we may see them.' Roger Bacon was accounted a necro- 

 mancer because when at Oxford he showed people things that 

 were out of sight ; and we are told that during his life he spent a 

 considerable sum in experiments amounting to ^2,000 ; i.e.^ 

 ;£i8,733 present value. 



