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dynamics; to his supreme services to submarine tele- 
graphy by his investigations of the conditions of 
signalling by long cables; and to his invention of the 
galvanometer and siphon recorder. Allusion was made 
to the revolution Lord Kelvin effected in the design of 
the ship’s compass ; his sounding apparatus, in its appli- 
cation both to ocean soundings and to coasting work; to 
the apparatus for electric measurement, which was to be 
found in nearly every important electric lighting station; 
and to the changes he had effected in the study of 
physics, and the application of mathematics to the 
solution of physical problems. 
Before the meeting dispersed the President spoke 
briefly of the naval pageant from Osborne to Ports- 
mouth, an accompaniment of the removal of our beloved 
Queen Victoria on her last voyage. As a mark of 
respect the audience remained standing during the 
President’s speech. 
Friday, 1st March, 1901. The Rt. Hon. Sir 
Richard Temple, Bart., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 
Dr. J. W. Williams, F.L.S., gave a lecture entitled, 
“The Amcoeba and its Allies; a Study in the Life 
Histories of simple organisms.” 
The lecturer first dwelt on the nature of protoplasm, 
describing it as a flux of chemical materials, and not 
merely a mixture of chemical compounds, and in giving 
Huxley’s definition of it as “the physical basis of Life,” 
said that this definition did not lead us far, because we 
do not know what life is. After referring to the amceba’s 
place in nature, by means of a genealogical tree, and 
showing that it is one of the simplest of living organisms, 
the lecturer went on to say that the amceba measured at 
most the one-hundredth part of an inch in diameter and 
was found at the bottom of the Hampstead Ponds and 
