IjINN^EAN SOCIKTiT OF LONDOf^. 79 



largest that the Treasiu-er and Council have ever been called to 

 administer. The obvious improvement in our Meeting E-oom 

 might be taken as an indication that the Council were somewhat 

 embarrassed with the riches poured into their coifers were it not 

 known that this is only one among many evidences of the warm 

 interest and generous liberality manifested by one of its Officers 

 to the Society. 



Since the last anniversary the Society has published 1386 pages 

 of their Journal, illustrated by 42 lithographic plates and 19 

 woodcuts, and 43 pages of quarto Transactions with 5 plates. 

 The Council have nearly completed the preparation of a new 

 Catalogue of the Library, which will be sent to press in the 

 course of a few months, and when ready will be distributed 

 among the Fellows. Considerable progress has also been made 

 in the preparation of an index to the twenty volumes of the 

 Zoological Journal which are now completed, and which will 

 prove as valuable an aid in the use of this section of our Journal 

 as Mr. Jackson's index has been for the Botanical portion. 



It is one of the sad things connected with an anniversary that 

 it recalls the blanks which death has made among us. Our 

 senior Secretary takes it as his special duty to prepare an 

 account of those who are lost to us. I do not wish to interfere 

 with a service which he so efficiently discharges. But I must 

 notice if it be only to name the venerable Miles Joseph Berkeley, 

 who closed at a ripe age his services to science — services equally 

 eminent whether we look at them in connection with the study 

 and exposition of that group in which he was an acknowledged 

 master, or to the use he made of his extensive knowledge in 

 solving the difficulties that practical men meet with in the 

 cultivation of plants for profit or for pleasure ; John Ball, too, 

 whose travels and expositions of local floras and investigations 

 of the problems connected with the geographical distribution of 

 plants are known to all the recipients of our. publications ; 

 Francis Day, whose services to Zoology and practical interest in 

 our Society cannot be forgotten; and lastly William MacNab, 

 who at a comparatively early age was taken from a life of service 

 which he was certain to have made useful to his generation. 



I will now ask your attention, during the time that our Bye- 

 Laws require the ballots to remain open for the election of the 

 Council and Officers for the ensuing year, to some observations 

 on The early hislori/ of some oj" the species of Plants now consti' 

 tuting a portion of the Flora of England. 



In our day considerable attention has been devoted to the 

 nature and contents of the post-Tertiary deposits of Britain, 

 because of the light they throw on early man and his couteu\- 

 poraries. Scattered notices and fragmentary lists of the plant- 

 remains contained in these beds occur in Greological memoirs, 

 but it is to the singularly persevering and successful labours- of 

 our Fellow Mr. Clement Ueid, of the Greological Survey of 



