30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Linnffius has said — "The Sciences have in all flourishing countries 

 been the tenderest object of Government, as they distinguish 

 civilized nations from barbarians, and make a small European 

 principality shine more than the greatest Oriental empire." 



I am not sure that we have all had the same happy experience 

 of the usual objects of a Government's tenderest care. But 

 althoiigh our native pearls may not have the same lustre as those 

 from the Orient, we shall all agi'ee with the celebrated Swede that 

 the cultivation of Science may " make a small European princi- 

 pality shine more than the greatest Oriental empire." 



The Eight Hon. Loi-d Avebuey, P.O., F.E.S., then moved: — 

 That the President be thanked for his excellent Address, and that 

 he be requested to allow it to be printed and circulated among the 

 Eellows. 



This having been seconded by Dr. Maxwell T. Masters, E.R.S., 

 was put by Lord Avebury, and carried unanimously. 



The President then addressed Sir Dietrich Beandis, K.C.I.E., 

 F.R.S., and in presenting the Linnean Medal to him on behalf of 

 Prof. EnuARD Strasburger, F.M.L.S., specified the services 

 which had moved the Council to make this award. 



The President said : — 



" Sir Dietrich Brandis, The Council of the Linnean Society, 

 desiring to do what honour is in their power to your very dis- 

 tinguished countryman the great botanical histologist and 

 morpbologist at Bonn, Geheinn-ath Professor Eduard Strasburger, 

 have singled him out from the botanists of the world as the 

 recipient this year of the Linnean Gold Medal. Strasburger is 

 known as a leader in science wherever biological teaching and 

 biological investigation are carried on, and the recognition of his 

 great merit is by no means confined to botanists. I well remember 

 the impression he made upon myself and other zoologists by 

 his views upon the changes in the nuclear chromosomes in an 

 address given at the last Oxford meeting of the British Asso- 

 ciation, and the great value of his cytological work was known 

 to us long before that ; while to the student of botany he 

 must have been an example, a guide, and an inspiration for 

 nearly forty years. His ' Lehrbuch der Botanik ' (1894) and 

 ' Das botanische Practicum ' ( 1884) are standard works familiar in 

 our universities and fundamental in their effect on laboratory 

 practice. Few, if any, amongst botanical investigators have pro- 

 duced a greater number of works of first-rate importance influencing 

 the teaching in nearly every branch of the subject. Beginning, 

 in 1867, with his researches on the development of the stomata, 

 passing in 1872 to his great work on the Conifers and Gnetacese, 

 which we recognize as one of the first morphological investi- 

 gations from an evolutionary point of view inspired by Darwin, 



