PROCEEDINGS 



ESSEX INSTITUTE 



MONDAY, JANUARY 25, 1868. Social Meeting at Hamilton Hall. 

 Vice President A. C. GOODELL in the chair. 



AFTER some preliminary business, and remarks by the chairman, 

 Rev. E. C. BOLLES of Portland was introduced and spoke of the 

 microscopic structure of plants. 



The address was an eloquent statement of the nature, form, growth 

 and multiplication of vegetable cells ; full of beautiful descriptions of 

 the methods and operations, revealed only by the microscope, by 

 which from their respective germs are evolved the forms alike of the 

 stateliest trees of the forests and minutest mould or plant that micro- 

 scopy has revealed. 



JOHN D. PHILBRICK, of Boston, well known from his labors in behalf 

 of popular education, made a few remarks on the value of Scientific 

 knowledge to the school teacher, and the importance of the study of 

 natural history in our system of instruction. 



The meeting then adjourned, and the company was invited to ex- 

 amine the objects placed under the microscopes, illustrative of the 

 remarks of the lecturer. A collation and social entertainment closed 

 the programme for the evening. 



Diagrams drawn with white and colored crayons upon the Black- 

 board, by Mr. E. S. MORSE, were used in illustration of the subject. 

 On the walls were suspended several of the magniflcient lithographs 

 of Allen's Victoria Regia. Around the room were arranged thirty-six 

 Microscopes under which were placed slides containing specimens of 

 transverse and longitudinal sections of exogenous and endogenous 

 plants ; of leaves, cuticle, spores, pollen ; and sections of coal and hard 

 vegetable tissue ; most of them were prepared by Mr. E. Bicknell. 



