I 



Dec, I. 1887] 



NATURE 



117 



vidual papers will also be issued separately, so that Fellows who 

 prefer receiving them in this way can have them as soon as they 

 are printed. Moreover, the issue of the Transactions in two 

 series will enable institutions that are concerned with one only 

 of the two groups of subjects, and that are not on our list for free 

 presentation, to purchase for their libraries the series devoted to 

 that group, instead of going to the expense of procuring the 

 whole Transactions. 



I am happy to be able to announce that the publication of the 

 Challenger Report is now nearly finished. Twenty-eight volumes, 

 some in two parts, have now been published, and these are all 

 in the Society's library. 



The KrakatJib Committee have now all but completed their 

 labours. A vast amount of information on the phenomena 

 related to that most remarkable volcanic explosion has been 

 collected and digested, different branches of the inquiry having 

 been taken up by different members of the Committee. An 

 estimate has been made of the cost of publication of the Report, 

 and the Council has decided that it should be published as a 

 separate work, and has voted the sum required for publication. 

 The printing of the volume is now far advanced, and in a very 

 few weeks it will in all probability be in the hands of the public. 



The reports of the observers of the total solar eclipse of 

 August last year are now coming in. From inquiries I have 

 made I am in hopes that they will all be in by the end of the 

 year. It is obviously convenient that they should all be dealt 

 with together, rather than appear in a scattered form for the sake 

 of a slightly earlier publication of those which happen to be 

 read first. 



I mentioned in my last address that with respect to this eclipse 

 the Council, acting in accordance with the recommendations of 

 the Eclipse Committee, had decided to confine themselves to an 

 expedition to Grenada, without attempting another to Benguela 

 on the Western Coast of Africa, which if sent out from this 

 country would have been a good deal more costly, and of which 

 the success, judging by such accounts of the climate of Benguela 

 and its neighbourhood as we could procure, seemed very doubt- 

 ful. The Committee guaranteed, however, ;^ioo towards the 

 expense of a small expedition from the Cape in case Her 

 Majesty's Astronomer at that place should be in a condition to 

 organize one. Sir W. J. Hunt-Grubbe, the Admiral in command 

 at that stati )n, was prepared to render every assistance in his 

 power. Ultimately, however, it was not found practicable to 

 organize an expedition from the Cape, and so the English 

 observations of the eclipse were confined to those taken at 

 Grenada. I have heard that the day of the eclipse was fine at 

 Benguela, but there were no astronomers of any nation there to 

 take advantage of it. It may be doubted, however, whether, in 

 spite of the fineness, the haze which is said to prevail so much on 

 that coast at that time of year, might not materially have in- 

 terfered with the observations. 



The boring in the Delta of the Nile has been continued, by the 

 favour of the War Office, under the able and zealous superin- 

 tendence of Captain Dickinson, R. E. As I mentioned last 

 year, the Committee thought it best to concentrate their efforts 

 on a single boring until rock should be reached, or else a stratum 

 of such a character as to show that the alluvial or drifted deposit 

 had been got through. This result has not at present been 

 obtained. The boring at Zagazig reached the depth of 324 feet, 

 when the tube broke, and stopped for the time further progress. 

 It is, however, a matter of interest and importance to know that 

 the drift or deposit extends to so great a depth. Geologists 

 attach so much importance to the prosecution of the inquiry ihat 

 at the suggestion of the Delta Committee an application was 

 made to the Government Grant Committee for a grant of ;^5C)0, 

 which was acceded to by the Committee. This sum would not 

 suffice for the prosecution of the inquiry to the extent con- 

 templated ; but it w as thought that with such a sum as a nucleus 

 extraneous pecuniary assistance might be obtained from Societies 

 or individuals specially interested in the inquiry, and the Council 

 have authorized the Delta Committee to avail themselves of such 

 aid. 



The meetings of Council and Committees continue to be very 

 numerous, and no less than twenty-two Committees and Sub- 

 Committees have been at work during the session. 



The number of papers communicated to the Society continues 

 to i icrea.-»e. In 1884-85 the number was 93 ; in 1885-86 it was 

 113 ; and in the past session, 129. 



Since the last Anniversary one complete part of the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions, and thirty-two japers towards the new 



volume have been published ; the whole comprising no less than 

 1482 pages of letterpress and seventy-six plates. In the same 

 period twelve numbers of the Proceedings, containing 984 

 pages, have appeared. 



The task of preparing the MS. of the Catalogue of Scientific 

 Papers, decade 1874 to 1883, has proved far heavier than was 

 anticipated, and the matter very far exceeds in bulk that of the 

 previous decade. The cataloguing of papers from the volumes 

 in our own library has long been finished, but the work of glean- 

 ing stray papers from works in other libraries which we do not 

 possess has proved more arduous than was expected, and even 

 now is not quite completed. It is confidently hoped, however, 

 that the MS. will be completed for the press during the coming 

 session. 



The distribution and exchange of duplicates from our library 

 commenced last session has been continued, and several de- 

 fective series among the periodicals on our shelves have been 

 made good. The general work of the library has received care- 

 ful attention at the hands of Mr, Alfred White, who shortly 

 before the last Anniversary was appointed to the office of 

 Assistant Librarian. 



The Copley Medal for the year has been awarded to the 

 eminent botanist, your former President, Sir Joseph Dalton 

 Hooker. It is impossible, within the limits to which I must 

 confine myself on the present occasion, to do more than briefly 

 refer to some of the more salient features of his scientific career, 

 extending as it does over nearly half a century of unceasing 

 intellectual activity ; and I need hardly say that in attempting to 

 give some idea of important labours which lie outside my own 

 studies, I am dependent on the kindness of scientific friends. 



As a traveller, he can perhaps only compare with Humboldt 

 in the extent to which he has used travel as an instrument of 

 research. To quote a remark by Prof. Asa Gray, " No 

 botanist of the present century, perhaps of any time, has seen 

 more of the earth's vegetation under natural conditions." His 

 Antarctic voyage in 1839-43 supplied the material for a series of 

 well-known works of first-rate importance on the vegetation of 

 the southern hemisphere ; and these in their turn formed the 

 basis of important general discussions. The journey to India 

 in 1847-51 yielded, in the Himalayan journals, as Humboldt has 

 remarked, "a perfect treasure of important observations." The 

 maps made of the passes into Tibet are even still unsuperseded. 

 The fine work on the " Sikkim Rhododendrons " was at once a 

 revelation to the botanist and to the horticulturist. His account 

 of the glacial phenomena of the Himalayas supplied facts both 

 to Darwin and to Lyell. A journey to Morocco in 1 871 and a 

 later visit to North America led to important conclusions on 

 plant distribution. 



Perhaps Sir Joseph Hooker's most important place in 

 scientific history will be found in the rational basis upon which 

 he placed geographical botany, De Candolle, while admitting 

 the continuity of existing floras with those preceding them in 

 time, still adhered in principle to the multiple origin of species. 

 To quote a remark by Prof. Asa Gray, "De Candolle's great 

 work closed one epoch in the history of the subject, and 

 Hooker's name is the first that appears in the ensuing one." 

 According to Lyell, " the abandonment of the old received 

 doctrine of the 'immutability of species' was accelerated in 

 England by the appearance in 1859 of Dr. Hooker's 'Essay on 

 the Flora of Australia,'" This essay effected a revolution. It 

 was quickly followed in i860 by the classical essay on the 

 "Distribution of Arctic Plants," and in 1886 by the Notting- 

 ham lecture on insular floras. The fact of widely dissevered 

 localities for species, which De Candolle found an insuperable 

 obstacle to abandoning the doctrine of multiple origin, has, in 

 the hands of Hooker and A. Gray (as stated by Bentham), 

 afforded the most convincing proof of the genetic relationship of 

 the floras of which such species are components. 



In systematic botany. Hooker has perhaps had no rival since 

 Robert Brown. The "Genera Plantarum," the joint work of 

 himself and his friend Bentham, and the "Flora Indica," to 

 the completion of which our colleague is devoting the leisure of 

 a well-earned retirement, form only as it were the head of an 

 immense body of taxonomic memoirs. 



Nor have his services to botanical science been confined to 

 geographical botany and to taxonomy. His researches on 

 various groups, such as Wehvitschia and others, deal in a mas- 

 terly way with morphological problems of the highest interest 

 and of extreme difficulty. 



While no one would attempt to minimize the commanding 



