Vice-President’s Address. 5 
part of their future work in life was to be carried on; and 
it cannot but be felt that the Royal Physical Society has thus, 
through the influence of successive generations of members, 
played a most important part in laying down the lines 
of work, and in moulding the intellectual processes of its 
younger members, that have in after years led to most 
important results. 
In a case of this kind, it is better to give concrete examples 
than to advance general theories, and I may be allowed to 
accentuate what I have stated by referring to two such 
examples only. Our first two presidents, under the new rules 
of the Society, will serve admirably for our purpose. When 
Turner was senior demonstrator of anatomy with John 
_ Goodsir, he became a Fellow of this Society, and in 1860 
gave a paper entitled “ Remarks on the Musculus Kerato 
Cricoideus ;” in 1861 we find that he described “The Non- 
striped Muscle of the Orbit ;” and in 1865 gave a “ Notice of 
the Cranium of the Mangunya Negro,” thus commencing that 
series of descriptions of special muscles and of anthropologi- 
cal observations which has made his name famous throughout 
the scientific world ; and we may well say that the foundation 
of this reputation was laid in these papers, the last of the 
above-mentioned papers being read nearly two years before 
the author was chosen as worthy to succeed his great master 
in 1867. 
Similarly, I find that our present distinguished president, 
Dr Traquair, delivered his first paper, “Note of a Case of 
Abnormality in the Ossification of the Parietal Bones in the 
Human Fcetus,” on the 7th May 1862; whilst on the 25th 
of June 1865 he showed the first traces of that specialisation 
which has since made him one of the greatest, if not the 
greatest, authority on certain forms of fossil fishes, in a paper 
entitled “Observations on the Development of the Pleuro- 
nectide ;” so that more than twenty-five years ago the special 
bent of the work of our two last presidents was determined, 
and I need not tell members of this Society what part the 
works of these men have played in the building up of the 
sciences of anthropology and paleontology respectively. 
Gentlemen, I shall not attempt to go into the history of the 
