"SfSchlSl Royal Microscopical Society. 129 



way,' is as true iu science as in material tilings, Thirty years ago, 

 when the founders of the London Society met together, the city in 

 which we Kve was little better than a swamp. Ten years later, 

 when the writer first saw it, it was despised even by the cranes. 

 The only decent tavern where the traveller could find ' native rye' 

 with a strong smack of ' fusil,' was the old Sherman House, oppo- 

 site which, in a wooden erection, 10 by 12, presided the Hon. 

 Hugh J. Dickey, as Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, 

 surrounded by such an aborigines tar as would lead the more 

 civilized spectator to doubt whether they were the exponents or the 

 examples of the criminal code of the State. But the old times have 

 fled ; and now, in a well-ordered city with its 300,000 inhabitants, 

 on this 30th day of May, 1869, we are able to note that just 

 thirty years from the foundation of the first Microscopical Society 

 of which we can find any record, we have with us, in all the pride 

 and pomp of circumstance, The State Microscopical Society of 

 Illinois." 



The proposed cultivation of microscopy by this young but far- 

 seeing Society contains useful hints to those who have been longer 

 at work. Already special committees have been appointed for the 

 systematic investigation of floral structures, cryptogamous plants, 

 vegetable and animal histology and pathology, vegetable and 

 animal parasites, infusoria, crystallography, and kindred branches. 

 Besides which it is desired to make the Society useful in social 

 and commercial interests, by detecting adulteration in food and 

 fraud in fabrics, and to exhibit from time to time, so far as 

 may be possible, to such of the citizens as may ajDpreciate it, the 

 minute handiwork of the Creator, as it can be seen in no other 

 way than through the almost infinite vision of the microscope. 

 Such, then, is the vigorous impulse which our parent Society is 

 admitted to have given during the past year to microscopy, in the 

 great commercial centre of the State of Illinois. 



In accordance with an intimation made to you at our last 

 anniversary, your President and Council, in the early part of our 

 present session, were permitted to lay before the Chief Com- 

 missioner of Public Works and Buildings their formal application 

 . for apartments in some building appropriated by Government for 

 the use of learned societies. 



It was stated to the Chief Commissioner that the Royal Micro- 

 scopical Society, from the date of its foundation in 1839, has 

 efiiciently contributed to the advancement of the various branches 

 of science which the microscope is capable of elucidating, and that 

 the very high degree of perfection obtained by English opticians in 

 the construction of microscopes, and apparatus pertaining thereto, 

 has mainly resulted from the labours of Fellows of the said Society, 

 in devising plans, supplying formulre, and generally stimulating 



VOL. III. K 



