jTun,'i'^ST?8m] ^oijal Microscopical Society. 119 



A few words in memoriani respecting the late Mr. Holland, who, 

 though not officially of us, uniformly worked with us, will be received, 

 as a due tribute to the zeal of one of our oldest friends. 



Mr. Holland commenced life as a clerk to a ship broker, and 

 afterwards started in business, first as a partner, and then alone as 

 a wine merchant on Tower Hill. 



He was always ardently attached to science, and every moment 

 he could spare was devoted to some pursuit connected therewith. 

 As early as 1822 both the telescope and microscope seem to have 

 been passions with him. For a long time his best microscope was 

 a small compound one by Gary. To this instrument he added the 

 first rectangular movable stage. Afterwards he began to construct 

 and use very perfect globules of glass as objectives in a single 

 microscope made on a plan of his own, and having caused some of 

 these to be ground plano-convex, his continued study and experi- 

 ments resulted in the manufacture of some excellent Wollaston 

 Doublets, and afterwards in the Triplet with which his own name 

 has since been connected. The Triplet carried the single micro- 

 scope to its highest point of excellence, and for its discovery the 

 Society of Arts awarded him its Silver jMedal. 



At the time Mr. Barton made the beautiful specimens of fine 

 lines which are seen in the buttons now bearing his name, he 

 ruled, at the request of Mr. Holland, some exceedingly fine micro- 

 meters, which bear comparison with any recent productions. 



In September, 1833, he opened an exhibition of a gas micro- 

 scope, at 106, New Bond Street, which continued till July, 1834. 

 This instrument greatly surpassed the first arrangement exhibited 

 by Gary and Gooper in the previous year, inasmuch as the error of 

 spherical aberration was neutralized by mounting the objects on 

 curved glasses. 



In his collection of apparatus there is a rectangular prism and 

 a separate raised stage for sub-stage oblique illumination, and among 

 his pajiers we find a careful series of observations by this arrange- 

 ment on the sirim of various species of diatoms. 



An ingenious speciality was the construction of polarizing 

 " Floral Devices " for the microscope, some of which were made up 

 of as many as 192 pieces stamped out of various polarizing films by 

 a graduated series of minute punches, the connecting stems being 

 formed of the hairs from the back of a child's hand, adult hairs 

 being too coarse. One of these is most kindly presented to our 

 Society by Mr. J. Lyon Field, the present possessor of Mr. Holland's 

 microscope and objects. 



His latest investigations were on the specific microscoj)ic 

 characters of the virus of the cattle plague, illustrated by mounted 

 specimens and careful drawings. 



For the last thirty years he was in the counting-house of 



