$2 EXPERIMENTAL MICROSCOPY—-SOMMERS. 
of science, but also for possessing those qualities of head and 
heart which constitute the true gentleman; his death has caused’ 
a vacancy in eur ranks, which time will scarcely obliterate. The 
memory of his scientific and personal worth will ever recur te 
remind us ef the loss which science and our Institute has sus- 
tained. 
Our subject for to-night is appropriate, in view of the honour 
recently conferred upon us by the Royal Microscopical Society of 
London. The fellowship which comes to our President, while he 
is in office, is a tribute to werk which has been done by our 
body, and every member should feel a reasonable pride in the 
distinction, inasmuch as it is given in appreciation of work which 
all have tended to forward; furthermore we have reason for con- 
eratulation in the circumstance that the honour has fallen upon 
right worthy shoulders, those of a pioneer in the cause of science, 
It would be out of place to take up your time in describing 
the construction, or even the history of the Microscope. Its begin- 
nings, like that of many useful inventions, were very simple ; the 
lenses with which Leuwenhoeck discovered the blood corpuscles, 
and Malpighi the capillary circulation, when compared with the 
compound Microscope of to-day, tells at a glance of the vast 
strides which microscopy has made within the two centuries 
which have passed since it began to be applied to the study of 
Biology. It will enable us also to comprehend and appreciate its 
value to the student ef science, in opening to his bodily and 
mental vision fields of observation, which without it could never 
be explored. 
A glance through the instruments before you will reveal that 
sublime sight which the immortal Harvey is said to have never 
beheld, “the circulation of the blood in the capillary blood ves- 
sels.” This discovery was made twenty-six years subsequent to 
Harvey’s publication of his discovery of the circulation through 
the heart and great vessels. 
The development of the young Salmon from the ova can now 
be easily observed ; and the various changes, from the swelling 
of the blastoderm to the formation of the perfect minnow, are 
very interesting. Embryology may be said to date as a scientific 
