The President's Address, 



By CHAS. HEISCH, Esq., F.C.S., &c. 



Annual Meeting, February 25th, /875. 



Gentlemen, 



When I thought over the addresses delivered by some of 

 my predecessors, I felt that it would be idle for me to attempt 

 to speak to you on any subject exclusively connected with 

 Natural History ; and when I turned to the other subjects 

 embraced in the title of our Society, I found that, so far as 

 my limited knowledge went, there had been so little of 

 novelty during the past year, that I could find nothing with 

 which worthily to occupy your time. I therefore determined 

 to lay before you a few thoughts on a subject to which my 

 attention has been recently much directed ; I mean the 

 advantages to be derived from free communication between 

 the students of sciences, which at first sight, might be 

 thought to have but little in common. It has been objected 

 that the title of our Society is cumbrous ; perhaps it is so, but 

 the title proclaims the great fact that our Society is not 

 exclusively devoted to one object, and I would willingly put 

 up with a still more cumbrous title if, by so doing, I could 

 insure the scope of our Society being still further enlarged. 

 I propose to night to lay before you two or three in- 

 stances in which subjects comparatively remote, have been 

 found to have an important bearing on one another. We 

 have among us several gentlemen devoted to mechanical 

 studies, and who I happen to know would often gladly bring 

 mechanical subjects before us, but they have hesitated to do 

 so because they could not sec how they came within the 

 scope of our iSocicty. Now let any microscopist look at an 



