XXVlll PROCEEDINGS OF THE 
nifold acquirements to his new post (which had been wholly neg- 
lected for.many years), and speedily raising it from obscurity to 
renown. He immediately arranged a course of lectures at once 
scientific, practical and popular, gave chemistry and physiology 
their legitimate places in botanical teaching, and, by applying his 
mathematical powers in giving a prominent place to the geometrical 
problems involved in phyllotaxis, he awakened interest in a study 
to which some of the mathematicians of Cambridge had hitherto 
hardly accorded the dignity of a science. Nor did he neglect the 
more practical duties of a teacher ; no one knew so well as he did 
that to make botanists of students they must quickly be brought to 
believe that in some directions, at any rate, they can and ought to 
walk unaided ; he therefore took them on excursions, taught them 
early how to name plants by an artificial use of the natural method ; 
gave each confidence in his earliest efforts, and led them on by 
example, teaching and encouragement. Nor did botanists and 
undergraduates alone profit: his lecture room was attended by 
senior members of the University, and his excursions by entomo- 
logists, conchologists, and geologists ; each deriving knowledge in 
his own speciality from him, and he from them: thus exciting 
amongst his pupils an admiration for his manifold acquirements 
that was only equalled by their love of his personal character. 
“ For 14 years Professor Henslow resided at Cambridge as bota- 
nical professor, during which period the income attached to the 
chair was very small; this was, however, no obstacle to his in- 
stituting weekly evening meetings at his own house for the recep- 
tion of every one interested in science, including under-graduates ; 
to which all were invited to bring specimens of interest in any 
branch of science; and at which there was free intercourse 
between young men and ‘dons’ of every degree. This practice, 
previously unknown in the University, and, we regret to say, as yet 
unfollowed, was a step of immense importance in diffusing a taste 
for science, no less than in inciting the young men to intellectual 
pursuits. . 
“ During this period he contributed two papers to the Cambridge 
Philosophical Society on a hybrid Digitalis, and the structure of 
the Mignonette, both of the highest merit as works of philoso- 
phical research, and which established his reputation amongst 
continental naturalists: he also wrote the volume on Botany for 
Lardner’s ‘ Cabinet Cyclopedia,’ an admirable little work, of which 
two editions have been sold, and a third was under revision at the 
time of his decease. It is a noticeable fact, that since Professor 
