LINIfEAN SOCIETY OE LOITDOlSr, Iv 



The President nominated G-eorge Bentham, Esq., to be a Vice- 

 President in tlie place of Robert Brown, Esq., for the ensuing 

 year. 



It was moved by Sir C, Lyell, seconded by IMr. Bennett, and 

 resolved unanimously : — 



"That this Meeting desires most emphatically to record its 

 deep sense of the eminent services rendered by the late 

 Robert Brown, Esq., both to the Liunean Society and to 

 Botanical Science, by the entire devotion of a long life and 

 of talents of the Idghest order, to the promotion of the great 

 objects for which the Society was formed. 



" That it looks back AArith heartfelt satisfaction to the long period 

 of sixty years, during which Mr. Brown was connected with 

 the Society, as an Associate, as Librarian, as a Fellow, as a 

 Vice-President, and as President ; and is profoundly sensible 

 of the honoiu' which the Society has derived from its long 

 and intimate connexion with so great a master in Botanical 

 Science. 



" That whUe thus recording its high appreciation of the eminent 

 talents of this great man, and of their successful application 

 to the pursuits of Natural Science, this Meeting cannot re- 

 frain from also paying a just tribute to the simple-hearted 

 benevolence of disposition, the high moral purity of mind, 

 and the unswerving rectitude of judgment, which formed the 

 most striking distinctions of his individual character. 



" That, influenced by these various considerations, this Meeting 

 deeply deplores the loss which the Liunean Society and 

 Natural Science have sustained by the death of so distin- 

 guished, and at the same time so estimable, a man." 



Eead, first, a Letter from Sir Charles Lyell, P.L.S., and Dr. J. D. 

 Hooker, P.L.S., addressed to the Secretary, as introductory to 

 the following Papers on the laws which affect the production of 

 Varieties, Eaces, and Species, viz. : — 



1. An "Extract from a MS. work on Species, by Charles 

 Darwin, Esq., E.E.S., P.L.S., &c., sketched in 1839 and copied 

 in 1844." 



2. An " Abstract of a Letter addressed by Mr. Darwin to 

 Professor Asa Gray, of Boston, U.S., in October 1857." 



3. An " Essay on the Tendency of Varieties, &c. to depart 



