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easily and pleasantly an important branch of phytology 

 might be cultivated by many o f our members, and even by 

 ladies, whose taste may incline to this science. Indeed, it 

 seems to me that, instead of rambling among the miscel- 

 laneous wonders of the microscope, every possessor of that 

 instrument should endeavour to employ it in some of the 

 many methods likely to be at once useful and instructive, 

 and that pointing out any path to this end, how to pursue 

 it and find the subjects, are among the legitimate objects of 

 this society. There are, moreover, certain cbains of scien- 

 tific inquiry which can only be completely followed and the 

 missing links cleared by the co-operation of a large number 

 of independent observers, and without which we are never 

 likely to acquire sufficient materials for an accurate and 

 conclusive judgment. And this is eminently the case as 

 regards the subject to which 1 have now to solicit you 

 attention. 



A long pursuit of minute anatomy has led me to the 

 belief that the next great step towards a truly natural 

 system of classification of the products of organized nature 

 will be in this direction. In the anatomy of animals, the 

 observations of John Quekett, Alexander Nasmyth, Mr. 

 Tomes, and Professor Beale, are to this effect ; years have 

 rolled away since I proved the immense importance of a 

 certain part of this branch of knowledge in systematic 

 zoology ; and my subsequent researches have shown a like 

 value of the same line of inquiry in systematic botany. 



And in this point of view we come to the Cell-biography 

 of Plants, on which subject it is now proposed to give an 

 account of the results of some of my own researches, and of 

 the means by which those results were obtained ; so that 

 any botanist, even with the most slender information of 

 phytotomy, may easily ascertain the value of the leading 

 phenomena. To me, they appear quite sufficient to prove 

 that, until the cell-life of plants has been more carefully 

 studied, and the facts generally realized by botanists, we 

 flhall never arriTe at a full and satisfactory knowledge 



