CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 261 



under certain circumstances become connected witli the work of the Un- 

 derground Water Committee. Thus the Essex earthquake of April 22, 

 1884, had caused a rise in the level of the water in Messrs. Courtauld's 

 well at Becking, which had reached its maximum in June of the same 

 year. Since then the level had been gradually falling, and at its present 

 rate it might be expected that the water would be at the same level as it 

 was before the earthquake about next August. 



Section D, 



Life Histories of Plants. — Professor Meldola said that during a recent 

 visit to Oxford he had had an opportunity of hearing a suggestion in the 

 course of a conversation with Professor Bayley Balfour, which had appeared 

 to him as likely to be of use to the members of local Societies. He had 

 therefore invited Professor Balfour to attend the Conference and explain 

 his views on the suggested subject, but as that gentleman was prevented 

 from being present he had forwarded the following communication : — 



' It appears to me that much good scientific work might be done by 

 members of local Societies in a direction which has not attracted so much 

 attention in Great Britain as it deserves. The discovery and description 

 of new forms, and the distribution of our indigenous plants is in Botany 

 the line upon which most of the energies of local Societies are principally 

 spent, whilst habit, construction, and generally the features of life-history 

 of plants come in for attention in quite a secondary way. This arises, I 

 think, in great part from the prevalent notion that the facts of the life- 

 history of our common plants are all well known, and that there is little, 

 if anything, more to find out about them. That this is an erroneous idea 

 may easily be shown — witness, for example, the interesting observations 

 recently published by Sir John Lubbock — and there is a field for a great 

 deal of sound work upon plants growing at our doors. 



' Within recent years Mr. Darwin's work, followed up by that of such 

 men as Hermann Miiller, Kernel', Ogle, and others, has given a stimulus 

 to obsei'vations of adaptations between the vegetable and animal kingdoms 

 in connection with pollination in flowers ; and many intei'esting facts about 

 British plants have been brought to light by workers in local Societies. 

 But little has been done for the subject of the vegetative organs of these 

 plants — I mean the arrangement, true nature, and structure of the mem- 

 bers that carry on plant-life. In Germany many years ago Wydler and 

 Irmisch published a splendid series of contributions to the knowledge of 

 these features in indigenous German plants — why has this not been done 

 for Britain ? 



' Now I venture to think that good results would follow if you would 

 bring before the Delegates at the meeting to-day the importance of en- 

 couraging the members of their Societies to study the life-histories of 

 indigenous plants in their entirety, i.e., from the stage of embryo in the 

 seed up to the production of fruit and seed again. Anyone who will take 

 up this line of study will assuredly derive great pleasure from it, and will 

 be able to add a great deal to the sum of our knowledge of plant-life. 

 Such work can be well combined with the more usual systematic work, 

 it can be easily accomplished, and it will be found to give much additional 

 interest to the study of British Botany.' 



Mr. C. P. Hobkirk considered that Professor Balfour's letter was a 

 very important one, and that, as therein suggested, the time and energies 



