LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 191 



adopted, Messrs. Baker, A. W. Bennett, Braithwaite, Murray, and 

 Scott replacing the retiring members. — The President then delivered 

 his Annual Address, in which, after reviewing the progress and 

 prosperity of the Society during the past year, and noticing with 

 regret the loss which the Society had sustained by the death of several 

 of its Fellows, he gave an elaborate and interesting history of the 

 existing portraits of Linnaeus, a great many of which were in the pos- 

 session of the Society, and would now be supplemented by others 

 which he had the pleasure to present. The result of his enquiry 

 showed that there are at least seven original and authentic portraits 

 of Linnaeus in existence ; that the engravings most widely known are 

 from the originals by Inlander and Roslin, and that these gave the 

 most faithful representation of the features of the great naturalist. — 

 A unanimous vote of thanks to the President for his Address, coupled 

 with a request that it might be printed, having been passed, the 

 ceremony of awarding the Society's gold medal took place. This 

 medal, having on the obverse a fine bust of Linnaeus, and on the 

 reverse the arms of the Society, below which is engraved the name 

 of the recipient, was founded last year in commemoration of the 

 Society's centenary anniversary, and is bestowed upon a botanist 

 and zoologist alternately, for distinguished services to biological 

 science. This year it was awarded to the eminent botanist. Prof. 

 Alphonse LeCandolle, and in his unavoidable absence was handed 

 to his grandson, M. Austin DeCandoUe, who attended on his behalf 

 to receive it. Addressing his representative, the President said : — 

 *' Monsieur De Candolle, — It is a great satisfaction to me to place 

 in your hands, for transmission to your distinguished grandfather, 

 the Linnean medal in recognition of his many important ser- 

 vices to botanical science. These services have been so great, 

 and are so universally acknowledged, that it is unnecessary for me 

 to do more than to refer to them. His many systematic monographs 

 justify his being awarded any honour that botanists can confer. 

 His philosophical treatment of the geographical distribution of 

 plants has greatly advanced this department of Science, and his 

 successful codification of the laws of botanical nomenclature has 

 been of the greatest practical service to systematists. But botanists 

 will always look with gratitude to Alphonse DeCandolle for the 

 successful carrying on of the gigantic enterprise inaugurated by his 

 father when he undertook the publication of the ' Prodromus 

 Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis.' By his own work, by 

 securing the aid of accomplished collaborators, and perhaps not 

 least by the plodding toil of reading the proof-sheets of volume 

 after volume of dry systematic descriptions during the thirty-two 

 years in which he took charge of the * Prodromus,' he has laid 

 science under a debt which cannot be estimated. The work as now 

 completed contains descriptions of all the Dicotyledonous Phanero- 

 gams, and of Gymnosperms which were known when the different 

 volumes were published, amounting to nearly 60,000 species. 

 And though the 'Prodromus' is discontinued, the debt to M. De 

 Candolle yearly increases by reason of the important Monographs 

 forming the * Suites au Prodromus ' issuing under his editorial care. 



