RECENT PROGRESS OF SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 27 
Ammonites Jason, Rein. 990 feet. 
A, Sedqwickii, Pratt (var. of A. Jason). 972 feet. 
A. Lambertti, Sow: 1000 feet. 
Ammonites, ? sp. (with tubercles). 979, 998 feet. 
Fish. 1001 feet. 
Hybodus. 1004 feet. 
On the Recent Progress and Present State of Systematic Botany. 
By Grorcr Bentuam, F.K.S, 
[A communication ordered by the General Committee to be printed 77 extenso. | 
Ir is now some years beyond half a century since I took up the pursuit of 
systematic botany—at first as a mere recreation, rather later as a study either 
subservient to or as a diversion from others which my then social position 
rendered more important, but for the last forty years as the main occupation 
of my life. During that long period the science has undergone various 
vicissitudes. At one time generally regarded as constituting the whole or 
nearly the whole of botany, subsequently reduced by some to a mere tech- 
nical cataloguing of names, it became the fashion, especially among physio- 
logists, who arrogated to themselves the exclusive title of scientific botanists, 
to sneer at it as a trivial amusement; it has now again vindicated its im- 
portance, especially since, by the promulgation of the great Darwinian 
theories, it has become absolutely necessary to include in it, not only the 
life-history and distribution of races, but also the results at least of the 
investigations of physiologists and paleontologists, whilst physiologists 
themselves have but too frequently been led astray by their neglect of the 
labours of scientific systematists. Having in my early days personally con- 
versed with one of Linnzus’s active correspondents (Gouan of Montpellier), 
having received many useful hints on the method of botanical study from 
the great founder himself of the Natural System (Antoine Laurent de 
Jussieu), having been honoured with the intimacy of the chief promoters 
and improvers of that system (Auguste Pyrame De Candolle, Robert Brown, 
Stephan Endlicher, John Lindley), having enjoyed the friendly assistance 
either personally or by correspondence of almost every systematic botanist 
of note of this nineteenth century (whether followers or, in earlier days, 
antagonists of the Jussieuan methods), I had from the first taken some part 
in the controversies which ensued, and always watched them with an in- 
terested eye. And now at the close of my career I had sketched out a 
review of the position this, my special branch of the science, has occupied 
in relation to the others for my valedictory address to the Linnean Society. 
My premature resignation of the Presidency having rendered unnecessary 
the drawing-up of that address, I have put my notes into a form which I 
have thought might not be unacceptable to the Association, as some compli- 
ance with the request made to me at its Meeting at Cambridge in 1833. 
Before the days of Linnzus, the attempts to scale and explore the steep 
and rugged acclivities of the Parnassus of Science on the side of Natural 
History, and especially in the district of Systematic Botany, had been many, 
but vague and unsuccessful. Some general ideas of the direction to be 
