824 REPORT— 1903. 



Section IC— BOTANY. 

 President of the Section. — A. C. Seward, M.A., F.R.S. 



TIIURSnAY, SEPTEMBER 10. 



The President delivered the following Address : — 



Ijt 18*^.3, tlie date of the last meeting held by the British AHSociation at Southport, 

 the liite Professor AVillianison, of Manchester, delivered ii I'residential Address 

 before the Geological Section, in which he reviewed recent progress in paltBobotanical 

 research, with special reference to the vegetation of the Oual period. It would 

 have been an interesting task to traverse the same ground to-day, in order to show 

 what a vast superstructure has been built on the Ibundations which Williamsoa 

 laid. In alluding to the controversies in which he bore so vigorous a part, 

 Williamson spoke of the conflict ns virtually over, though still reflected ' in the 

 ground-swell of a stormy ])ast.' Now that twenty years have elapsed we are able 

 to recognise with no little satisfaction that his views are firmly established, and 

 that the debt which we owe to his able interpretation of the relics of PaliBozoic 

 plant-life is universally acknowledged. "Williamson's labours demonstrated the 

 possibilities of microscopical methods in the investigation of Carboniferous plants ; 

 but at the time of publication his results did not receive that attention which 

 their importance merited, and it is only in recent years that botanists have been 

 induced to admit the necessity of extending their observations to the buried 

 treasures of bygone ages. We have been slow to realise the truth of the following 

 statement, which I quote from an able article on Darwinism in the * Edinburgh 

 Review ' for October of last year : ' The recognition of the fact that in every 

 detail the present is built on the past has invested the latter with a new title to 

 respect, and given a fresli impulse 1o the study of its history.' The anatomical 

 investigation of extinct types of vegetation has done more than any other branch 

 of botanical science in guiding us along the paths of plant-evolution during the 

 earlier periods of the earth's hi.story. 



I cannot conclude this brief reference to Williamson's work without an 

 expression of gratitude for the help and encouragement with which he initiated 

 me into the methods of paheobotanical research. 



Floras of the Past : their Composition and Distribution. 



Introduction. 



It is by no means easy to make choice of a subject for a presidential address. 

 There is the possibility — theoretical rather than actual — of a retrospective survey 

 of modern developments in the botanical world, and the opportunity is a favour- 

 able one for passing in review recent progress in that department of the science 



