LI>'>'EA>- SOCIETl- OF LO>'DOX. 17 



PEESIDENTIAL ADDEESS, 1902. 



The recurrence of the Anniversary Meeting of our Society brings 

 with it the traditional obligation of an Address from the Chair, at 

 once the greatest privilege and the most difficult task attaching to 

 the Presidential office. Whilst it is a high privilege to speak from 

 a Chair that has been occupied by a long line of distinguished men 

 of science, it is a formidable undertaking to deliver an address that 

 shall be not unworthy of such illustrious predecessors. 



On the present occasion J. endeavour to allay my own misgivings 

 by the reflection that the circumstances luider which we are met 

 are such as to call for an address which will not challenge com- 

 parison with the brilliant performances of the past. The year of 

 the Society's life which is now closing has been marked by im- 

 portant events affecting its domestic policy ; and it is tliese, rather 

 than purely scientific topics, that will form my principal subject- 

 matter. It is, I think, not undesirable that, on the occasion of 

 the Anniversary, the President should bring before the Eellows the 

 chief points in the history of the Society for the year, and thus, 

 in a sense, render an account of his stewardship. 



Let me, first of all, congratulate the Society upon the election 

 of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales as an Honorary 

 Member. It cannot be other than a source of the greatest satis- 

 faction to the Fellows that his name, like those of his Eoyal Father 

 and Grandfather, should adorn our roll. 



I have also great pleasure in reminding you that the Linnean 

 Medal has this year been awarded to Prof. Albert von Kcilliker, of 

 the University of Wiirzburg, our oldest, and I may add our most 

 distinguished. Foreign Member. Prof, von Kolliker was elected as 

 long ago as 1S5S, when he had alread}' achieved a reputation that 

 might well have sufficed for a lifetime. As a fellow-worker with 

 Schleiden, Schwann, and iS^aegeli, in the foundation of the cell- 

 theory, he had even then come into the first rank of biologists, a 

 position that he has never ceased to hold and has recently more 

 than justified by the publication of a new edition of his ' Gewebe- 

 lehre." 



You have heard from the Senior Secretary of the losses which 

 we, as a Society, have sustained during the past year. Whilst we 

 may congratulate ourselves that the number is not larger, we have 

 to deplore the death of some distinguished and well-known Fellows 

 whom we can ill afford to miss. The name of Sir Joseph Henry 

 Gilbert will always be associated scientifically with the earhest 

 investigation of the nitrogenous nutrition of plants ; and economi- 

 cally, with the foundation of the first and most important station 

 for experimental agriculture, the operations of which he directed 

 with untiring energy and unquahfied success for more than half a 

 century. In other countries, where Agriculture is rightly recog- 

 nized as the mainstay of the nation, such institutions are deemed 



LtNTf. SOC. PBOCEEDIJfGS. — SESSION 1901-1902. C 



