300 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
Reapine Microscorican Soorery. 
Tur members of this Society, which has now been established 
for more than six years, gave their third soirée on the 2nd April 
last. The members and their friends, amounting to about 400, 
amongst whom were included the édite of the Society of the place, 
assembled in the Town Hall soon after 7 p.m. About thirty 
microscopes were distributed round the room, and Mr. Baker, 
the well-known optician of High Holborn, had also kindly sent 
down half-a-dozen of his capital instruments, including one or 
two of his new and convenient portable field microscopes, which 
attracted considerable attention. The objects were of the usual 
popular kinds, and a large proportion of them had been prepared 
by the members themselves. In the course of the evening a 
short oral address was delivered by the President of the Society, 
Capt. Lang. He said— 
Ladies and Gentlemen,—On me devolves the grateful task of 
welcoming you to this third soirée of the Reading Microscopical 
Society, in the name of the members generally. We are much 
pleased and gratified at meeting such a large assemblage of our 
friends here this evening, not only because of course we are 
delighted to see them, but because their presence shows us con- 
clusively that these sorts of semi-scientific meetings are now 
appreciated in this town. Soon after I came to reside amongst 
you, now some eight years ago, two or three of us banded our- 
selves together to form a small Microscopical Club, but there 
were not wanting persons who told us that our project would 
never succeed, that all scientific associations of whatever kind 
were utter failures in Reading, and that ours would be no excep- 
tion to the general rule. Now, I am glad to say that these 
croakers have proved false prophets, for our small club has 
gradually swelled into a considerable society, numbering as it 
does now some twenty-five ordinary members, and thirty-four 
honorary members. We are much indebted to these latter ladies 
and gentlemen for joining us, and so indeed should you all be, as 
it is by means of their small annual subscriptions that we are 
enabled to give occasional entertainments of this kind to our and 
their general friends; but I hope to see these honorary members, 
in future, more frequently at our ordinary meetings. I am sure 
the benefit would be mutual, for as they must be more or less 
interested in natural history pursuits, we should doubtless gain 
occasional information from them, whilst, probably, they would 
learn something from us as to the microscopical anatomy of the 
vegetable and animal world. As to our ordinary members, I 
think I may fairly say that we now boast of several thoroughly 
good working microscopists—gentlemen who in the course of their 
investigations stumble every now and then on minute forms of life 
hitherto unknown to science, and gentlemen who can prepare and 
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