682 REPOKT— 1887. 



The Sti'omatoporolds liave lost an investigator in the field in Arthur Cham- 

 pernowue, -whose unexpected and early loss we all deplore. Bat in Professor 

 Nicholson they will find a most careful and painstaking monographer, who has 

 already given us one fine instalment of his work in the Palasontographical 

 volume. 



In Professor C. Lapworth we have an exponent of the structures and affinities 

 of the Graptolites as a class and of their stratigraphical position in the rocks un- 

 surpassed by any other worker. With him must he associated the names of 

 Barrande, Carruthers, Hopkinson, Nicholson, and a long list of foreign workers, all 

 of whom, however, look upon Lapworth as the highest authority in this group. 



In the Spongida we are especially indebted to Dr. G. J. Iliude, first for an 

 excellent, well-illustrated quarto catalogue of these organisms in the geological 

 collection of the British Museum, and secondly for the Paleozoic part of a fine 

 monograph of these for the Palceontographical volume just issued. 



Nor must we omit to recall the names of Professor Zittel, of Dr. Carter, of 

 Professor Sollas, and many other able workers in the fossil sponges. 



In the Foraminifera we naturally recall the names of D'Orbigny, D'Archiac, 

 Carpenter, Parker, Brady and .Tones, and Sir AMlliam Dawson, our illustrious ex- 

 President. Professor Rupert Jones is still at work on this group, and has recently 

 published a paper on Nummulites deyans from the Eocene beds of Hampshire and 

 the Isle of Wight. 



Of late years fossil Botany, too long neglected, has taken a place of note in all 

 those inquiries concerning the origin of floras, the age of the stratified rocks, the 

 former distribution of land surfaces, and especially in all questions relative to the 

 climate of the globe in past times. 



Passing over the earlier period of the present century, when fossil botany was 

 known only bj- tbe works of Artis, Witham, Schlotheim, Sternberg, Goeppert, 

 Cotta, Lindley and Ilutton, Steiuhauer and Adolphe Brongniart, we have to recall 

 the names of other workers who have only passed away in our owii time, such as 

 Biuney, Bunbury, Corda, Bowerbank, Heer, Unger, Schimper, and Massalongo. 



In the period of fifty years, whose completion we have just celebrated, the 

 names of our countrymen Binney, Bowerbank, Williamson, and Hooker stand 

 prominently forward contemporarily with those of Geinitz, Unger, Rossmasler, 

 and Schimper in Germany. In 184.") Dawson and Lesquereux entered the field in 

 America, Hooker in England, and one of tbe ablest writers on fossil plants, Oswald 

 Heer, entered upon his great work in Switzerland. In LS.'jO Massalongo in Italy, 

 and von Ettingshausen in Austria, were added to the roll of famous pahuobotanists, 

 and in 185-3 Newberry joined the American field of research. In 1860 the work 

 so long abandoned by Brongniart, iu France, Avas takeu up by de Saporta, and it 

 is no small gratification to have him with us here to-day, and to welcome him 

 amongst our distinguished foreign guests. 



About the same time my friend and colleague AVilliam Carruthers commenced 

 to write on fossil botany, and brought to bear upon the subject that accurate and 

 careful knowledge of living forms without which such investigations must always 

 prove but futile. 



It is extremely difficult to estimate the number of species of fossil plants that 

 had been described up to the year 1837, but it probably fell far short of a thousand. 

 In 1828 less than 500 species were known to Brongniart. 



In the first edition of ' Morris' Catalogue,' published in 1843, the number of 

 British fossil plants recorded is 628. 



Careful lists were published by Goppert and by Unger in 1844 and 1845, giving 

 a total of knowm species from 1600 to 1800. 



In 1849 the number had increased, according to Bronn's ' Index Paloeontologicus ' 

 to over 2,000, and the following year Unger enumerated 2,421 in his ' Genera et 

 species Plantarum,' rather more than 500 of which may have been British. In 

 1852 Morris (2nd edition) gives the number of species as 740. Since then, 

 chiefly through the labours of Heer, Ettingshausen, Lesquereux, Massalongo, 

 Unger, and de Saporta, this number has been more than quadrupled. Mr. Gardner 

 estimates that at least 9,000 species must have been described. This great increase 



