318 
NATURE 
[ Aug. 18, 1870 
Geology and Palzeontology ; your careful publications have their 
places among those of the Masters in every geological library ; 
and your thoughtful lectures live, and will live, in the minds of 
your scholars. We shall be happy if by this Testimonial you 
may be encouraged to persevere in a course alike honourable to 
yourself and advantageous to the public, and that it may be 
pleasant for you in future years to remember that among the 
names to be submitted to you are many of those who have 
known and shared and been instructed by your labours. 
“* Forsan et hac olim meminisse juvabit.” 
Mr. Prestwich said: I have known Prof. Morris now 
some 35 years, and I can truly say that a more earnest 
geologist, and one more ready to impart to others the 
great and varied information he himself possesses, there 
cannot exist. His aim has ever been to spread a know- 
ledge of that science which he has cultivated with so 
much pleasure and so much success. Often, too, regard- 
less of other considerations, his first object has always 
been the free, and, if possible, the gratuitous diffusion of 
geological science—possibly too much so. Still, if he 
has failed often to secure his reward in £ s. d., he has 
always secured the respect, esteem, and affection of his 
friends, and of all with whom he has worked. With 
most men the prospect of a good fee would be an incita- 
tion to work, but with my good friend Morris the surest 
way, I believe, to get him to work was too often to say 
that no fee or remuneration would attach to it. His first 
introduction years ago was by a valued mutual friend, 
Mr. Lonsdale, who suggested that a work on the Tertiary 
Geology of the London Basin was needed, and he thought 
that Prof. Morris might undertake the palzontological 
and I the stratigraphical part. I am inclined to believe 
that Mr. Morris must have considered the work as likely 
possibly to be remunerative, as, though taken up warmly 
at the time, the first chapter still remains unwritten, This 
testimonial is, I feel, but a small earnest of our feelings 
towards Prof. Morris. For the opportunity thus afforded 
of expressing our good wishes towards our friend, we 
have to thank the Mining Fournal for the publicity it 
has given to the matter, and for an active part in the 
management we are, I believe, indebted to Mr. Hearn, 
whilst Mr. Milnes has kindly acted as treasurer for the 
fund, which for Prof. Morris’s sake I only wish had been 
doubled. 
_ The meeting was then addressed by Mr. Hearn, and 
Prof. Tennant, and a letter was read from the venerable 
Prof. Sedgwick ; and Prof. Morris made an eloquent 
reply, in the course of which he said: It is with deep 
and sincere feeling that I thank you and the members of 
the Geological Society, and other friends, for the hand- 
some testimonial which I have received at your hands 
this day. I not only thank you for the kind manner with 
which you have expressed yourself, but I recall with 
pleasure the encouragement to pursue my labours you 
gave me more than 25 years since from that chair when 
President of the society, in 1842, and still more so when 
in after years your kind suggestion induced me to become 
a candidate for, and your strong recommendation placed 
me in, the position I now hold at University College, the 
duties of which, during the last 15 years, I have earnestly 
endeavoured to fulfil, so that I trust you have had no cause 
to regret the confidence you then paced in me. 
Prof. Sedgwick’s letter was as follows :— 
‘«The infirmities of old age make it impossible for me to at- 
tend the public meeting at the rooms of the Geological Society. 
This is to me a great sorrow, for no one can value Prof. 
Morris’s most laborious and most useful paleontological works 
at a higher price then I have done. And I honour him not 
merely as a man of science but also as a kind personal friend, 
who has for many years taken his place in the first rank of prac- 
tical English geologists. Pray present to him my heartfelt con- 
gratulations, which the load of 85 years, and a great infirmity of 
sight and hearing, will prevent me from offering personally.” 
The meeting then separated. 
WHEAT RUST AND BERBERRY RUST 
THE theory has long been prevalent among practical 
agriculturists that the proximity of berberry trees 
produces rust in wheat. Men of science, unable to trace 
herein the sequence of cause and effect, long derided the 
idea, and placed it among the prejudices of the agricultural 
mind. The facts of the farmer have, however, been too 
strong for the science of the botanist, and experience has 
won the day over theory. Let us trace for a moment the 
history of the inquiry. The first reference to the injurious 
influence of the berberry on corn appears in Kriinitz’s 
Encyclopedia, published in 1774. Marshall, in 1781, 
speaks of the berberry having been extirpated in Norfolk 
for this reason, and SchGpf, in 1788, mentions the same 
idea as prevalent in New England. Other writers of the 
same period give similar testimony ; and in 1806 Sir Joseph 
Banks writes thus in the Azmnals of Botany :—“ It has 
long been admitted by farmers, though scarcely credited 
by botanists, that wheat in the neighbourhood of a ber- 
Fic. A.—Puccinia graminis, Pers. 1. Leaf of grass, with mildew, natural 
size. 2. Section of the leaf, with a patch of mildew and rust: a, epidermis 
of the leaf; 4, bast-cell nerves; ¢ c, outer layer of cells of the leaf, on 
which the parasite rests; dd, mycelium; ee, young and old spores of 
Caoma lineare ; 7 f, stalks from which the spores have fallen off ; g, spores 
of the Puccinia. 3, 4. Spores. 5. Section of the wall of the lower spore- 
cell. 6. Longitudinal section ofthe upper spore-cell with the spore-nucleus. 
(2 -6 magnified.) 
berry bush seldom escapes the blight. The village of 
Rollesby, in Norfolk, where berberries abound, and wheat 
seldom succeeds, is called by the opprobrious appellation 
of ‘Mildew-Rollesby.’ Some observing men have lately 
attributed this very perplexing effect to the farina (pollen) 
of the flowers of the berberry, which is in truth yellow, 
resembling in some degree the appearance of the rust, or 
what is presumed to be the blight in its early state. It is, 
however, notorious to all botanical observers that the leaves 
of the berberry are very subject to the attacks of a yellow 
parasitic fungus, larger, but otherwise much resembling 
the rust in corn. Is it not more than possible that the 
parasitic fungus of the berberry and that of wheat are of 
the same species, and that the seed is transferred from 
the berberry to the corn?” ‘The acute suggestion thrown 
out by Sir Joseph Banks, at a time when so little was ac- 
curately known of the structure of fungi, was not followed 
out for halfa century ; it was reserved for the German 
fungologist, De Bary, within the last few years to establish 
the truth of his theory, and to prove the existence of the 
