1880.] 



MICEOSCOPICAL JOUKNAL. 



^ 



Mr. Chas, Fasoldt presented the 

 Society with a slide of his remark- 

 ably fine rulings. A letter from the 

 Mayor of the city of Buifalo was 

 received inviting the Society to 

 visit the new city buildings. 



The meeting then adjourned to 

 meet in the evening at St. James Hall 

 to listen to the President's address. 



The address of President Ward 

 was delivered before a large au- 

 dience. Although from necessity 

 somewhat popular in form, it con- 

 sidered many subjects of great im- 

 portance. 



The address is lenghty and in- 

 structive. We have not sufficient 

 space to publish it in full, but the 

 following copious abstracts will un- 

 doubtedly be read with interest : 



address by president r. h. ward. 



" Members of the American So- 

 ciety OF MiCROScopiSTS : Since this 

 is a new Society, as yet without a 

 history, a policy, or a thoroughly 

 organized membership, it is be- 

 lieved that an informal address, in 

 a popular form, in regard to the 

 position and objects of our Society 

 will be more timely and useful than 

 such a technical report of original 

 work as would usually be expected 

 in a president's annual address. 



" The formation of this Society, 

 and the presence of the audience 

 here to-night to welcome its first 

 public meeting, brings us to the 

 contemplation of a branch of 

 science, insignificant in years, tri- 

 vial in respect to its means and ob- 

 jects of study, but great in its accu- 

 mulated results, and in its record 

 of influence exerted upon the re- 

 cent progress of human thought 

 and the development of modern 

 science ; a department of learning 

 almost every step in whose progress 

 has been a revolution. It is scarcely 

 more than a hundred years since an 

 enthusiastic friend of the micro- 



scope announced certain improve- 

 ments in the instrument as render- 

 ing it " agreeable to the curious." It 

 is within the memory of persons now 

 only in middle age, that a majority 

 of people still considered the instru- 

 ment merely an elegant toy, that 

 an author who brought one to this 

 country at a cost of $1,000, was 

 derided for his foolish expenditure, 

 and that the high price of superior 

 English instruments was repeatedly 

 and formally stated as the reason of 

 their limited sale in this country, 

 where they are now commended by 

 their cheapness, compared with 

 those manufactured here. It is only 

 thirty or forty years since the Eng- 

 lish opticians, both theoretical and 

 practical, began the development of 

 the really modern microscope, a 

 work in which they were soon aided 

 and sometimes surpassed by their 

 friends in France, Germany and 

 this country. It is about the same 

 length of time since the brilliant 

 discoveries of ^Ehrenberg spread 

 abroad from Germany, fascinated 

 the naturalists of England and this 

 country, and taught the whole 

 world the possibilities of the new 

 means of research ; yet in those few 

 years an amount of work has been 

 done which it is the labor of a life- 

 time to review, A dozen years ago 

 the microscope was so complete and 

 satisfactory that some admirers 

 considered it to have reached its 

 limit of practicable improvement. 

 One author called it the only per- 

 fect instrument, by which it was 

 meant that it was the only instru- 

 ment of human construction whose 

 performance equalled its theory, 

 whose adaptations to its objects 

 left nothing further to be desired, 

 in whose contrivance or execution 

 human science had nothing further 

 to ask from human art. Yet every 

 succeeding year must have been a 

 surprise to such an author ; the per- 



