LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDOX. 



well as on inorganic bodies, and whilst carefully watching every 

 modification these forces undergo, when applied in combination 

 with vital power, gratefully accept any proved identity of action 

 in the living and inanimate world. 



OBITUAET NOTICES. 



The Secretary then read the following Notices of deceased 

 Members : — 



Francis Boott, M.D. — Dr. Boott was born at Boston, in Mas- 

 sachusetts, U.S., Sept. 26th, 1792, and was the son of Kirk 

 Boott, an Englishman who had settled there early in life ; his 

 mother Avas a Scotch lady, and his early education was acqviired 

 at Harvard University. When only between 16 and 17 years of 

 age he came over to England, where he resided near Derby with 

 a family connected with his own, and where he made the acquaint- 

 ance of Mrs. Hardcastle, his future mother-in-law, from whom 

 he acquired his taste for botany and for everything that is beau- 

 tiful in nature and refijied in literature and art. At about this 

 time he also became acquainted ya\\s. Sir Joseph Banks, and 

 formed life-long friendships with the late Robert Brown, Sir 

 William (then Mr.) Hooker, Sir James Smith, and most of the 

 eminent botanists of the day. During the years 1818-20 he made 

 several voyages to America, and formed an excellent herbarium 

 of Massachusetts plants, then little known in this country. 

 These he afterwards gave to Sir William Hooker, in whose Her- 

 barium they are preserved at Kew. On his final return to 

 England in the latter year he determined to follow the medical 

 profession, for which purpose he placed himself under the direction 

 of the late Dr. J. Armstrong, for whose professional ability and 

 private character he ever entertained a profound veneration. 

 From London he went to the University of Ediubiirgh, where he 

 studied under Hope, Munro, AJison, Pillans, Christison, and other 

 most eminent men, of whom the last two only survive him. After 

 presenting his inaugural Essay on Hydrocephalus, he received 

 his degree of M.D. in 1824, and finally settled in London in 1825. 

 Here he first held the chair of lecturer on Botany in the Webb 

 Street school of medicine, where his friend Dr. Armstrong was 

 professor of Materia Medica. His lectures are said to have been 

 admirable, both in matter and style, and to have excited much 

 enthusiasm ; whilst his untiring efi'orts to promote the welfare of 



