10 
The science of botany again owes much of its development 
to the light thrown upon the history of plant life by the aid of the 
microscope. Indeed, many thousands of minute vegetations would 
never have been studied at all without its valuable assistance. 
The improvements in the construction of the microscope may 
be said without exaggeration to have opened up a new botany 
altogether. The minute movements of the diatom, the simple 
though perfect, formation of the desmid, the birth, growth and 
decay of moulds and fungi and other infinitesimal vegetable 
forms would never have been brought to light if they had not 
been placed under the penetrating eye of the objective or upon 
the stage of the dissecting microscope. 
Vegetable physiology has developed into a science almost 
entirely since the date when the simple gave place to the com- 
pound microscope and enabled us to distinguish the cells and 
their contents, the modifications undergone befitting them to 
carry out the great aim of their existence, and from mere masses 
of colourless protoplasm to build up those magnificent structures 
which not only bathe the surface of our earth and gladden our 
eyes, but give to us some of our most valudble commercial 
products. 
Where, may I ask, would the zoologist and the entomologist 
be without the aid of the microscope? How would he dis- 
tinguish between the multitude of minute organisms, many of 
them practically invisible to the naked eye. Should we ever, 
without the microscope, have possessed such magnificent works 
as “ Pritchard on Infusoria,” or “‘ Fownes on the Blowfly?” Or 
from what source would the information have been derived that 
would enable us with unerring certainty to detect the obsequious 
but destructive parasite and countermine his attempts upon our 
lives and property ? 
Chemistry and physics too, those sciences of mouth-distort- 
ing terms, would feel as if there was something lacking in their 
armament and a difficulty in arriving at precise details, if there 
were not the micro-polariscope to assist in the systematic arrange- 
ment of crystallizations, or the depositions of solids from their 
solutions. And the micro spectroscope enables us as clearly to 
define the contents of a single drop of liquid as does the spectros- 
cope when applied to the elucidation of the problem as to the 
manufacture of worlds. 
In illustration of the subjects treated in his paper, Mr. Rean 
exhibited at its conclusion a number of microscopic slides of great — 
interest. 
