74 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
somewhat novel character, and demand a special explanation. The 
Bath Society is one of the youngest in the country (founded 
December, 1858), and its enterprise in undertaking an affair of 
this magnitude and responsibility, and carrying it through with 
such a marked success, must be proportionately estimated. As 
soon as the British Association accepted the invitation to visit 
Bath, the Society resolved to invite the assistance of the British 
Society, and conjointly with them to attempt, no mere exhibition 
of “curious baubles,’ but a scientifically arranged and classified 
illustration of the results of microscopical investigation in every 
natural kingdom. This plan (suggested by the Secretary of the 
Bath Society, Mr. J. W. Morris) being at once accepted, and the 
cordial co-operation of the British Society beg secured, the ar- 
rangements, which must have involved a vast amount of labour 
to all concerned, was carried forward to a completeness which was 
the theme of unqualified admiration to all who were present. 
The plan embraced the following features, which were most 
faithfully carried out:—On entering the large Ball Room, the 
visitor found himself in the “ Vegetable Kingdom.” Large green 
placards directed him from THALLOGENS to ExoGEns, smaller ones 
from ALG# to Funat. 
Coloured diagrams, illustrative of the objects exhibited, afforded 
those who could not approach the besieged instruments a means of 
rapidly surveying the gradations of vegetable life in structure or 
in form. To the illustration of the vegetable kingdom twenty- 
nine microscopes were devoted. 
Red inscriptions now announced the “ Animal Kingdom,” and 
at once it was apparent that the recent classification of Professor 
Huxley had been adopted; and thirty-nine microscopes enabled 
the observers to follow, by a most interesting development, the 
ascending scale from the Amcebiform Rhizopods of the Protozoa 
to the high degree of structure illustrated by the beautiful prepa- 
ration of the organs of the InsrctTm. 
Here, however, the large room had to be exchanged for another, 
and passing the sergeant of militia, who strictly guarded the exits 
and the entrances, the studious “ member” or “ associate’ found 
himself or herself, as might be, in another department, where 
the “ Histology and General Anatomy” of the VirTrBratTa 
were displayed by seventeen microscopes; and yellow labels in- 
vited the inspection of Geological, Chemical, and Mineralogical 
collections, to which twenty more microscopes were allotted. 
An observable feature in the arrangements, which the unavoidable 
haste of such an occasion did not, however, permit of being fully 
appreciated, was the supplying to almost all the microscopes a 
“series’’ of slides illustrating the entire subject under exhibi- 
tion, the printed synopsis informing the visitor that “ any object 
might be selected from such series for examination.” 
A third room—a capacious octagon—was devoted to the exhi- 
bition of microscopes and other philosophical instruments. Here 
