96 REPORT—1874. 
derry, and Down; and among the many specimens collected from these various 
stations has recognized, besides corals and Polyzoa, 69 species of Foraminifera, 11 
species of Ostracoda, and 33 forms of sponge-spicula ; many of these attain fine pro- 
portions, being much larger than those usually obtained from the washings of English 
chalk. Having found that the “ Paramoudras” as well as the ordinary flints usually 
contain sponge-spicula in quantity, he has been led to consider that flints in most 
instances have originated in a sponge or some other organism round which the silica 
accumulated according to well-known chemical laws. The Foraminifera are very 
numerous both in individuals and species; the following genera are well repre- 
sented :—Zrochammina, Lituola, Lagena, Nodosaria, Dentalina, Frondicularia, Fla- 
bellina, Pleurostomella, Lingulina, Marginulina, Vaginulina, Planularia, Cristellaria, 
Polymorphina, Globigerina, Pullenia, Rhabdogonium, Textularia; Gaudryina, Vir- 
gulina, Verneuilina, Bulimina, Bolovinia, Planorbulina, Truncatulina, Pulvinulina, 
Rotaha. 
BIOLOGY. 
Address by Professor Petmr Reprrrn, M.D., President of the Section. 
I consENTED to allow myself to be nominated President of this Section in compliance 
with the kindly expressed wishes of scientific friends, notwithstanding that I felt 
that the duties of the Chair would have been more fitly discharged by many who 
have attended the Meetings of the Association more regularly and laboured to pro- 
mote its objects more continuously than I have been able to do. 
Fortunately the increasing importance and the vast extent of the subjects com- 
ee under the head of Biology have led to a division of the business of this 
ection into the separate departments of Anatomy and Physiology, Botany and 
Zoology, and Anthropology ; and it is a great relief to me that the departments of 
Botany and Zoology and of Anthropology, respectively, will be presided over by 
gentlemen of the highest eminence in those subjects, and that Anatomy and Phy- 
siology, in which I am more immediately interested, will alone come under my 
direct supervision. It has occurred to me that, in attempting to give a stronger 
impulse and a more systematic direction to scientific inquiry, the time ordinarily 
devoted to an introductory address could not be more profitably oceupied than by 
bringing into as great prominence as possible some of the great revolutions in our 
Imowledge of Anatomy and Physiology which have taken place in my own time 
and under my own immediate observation. 
I remember, as if it were yesterday, the elucidation in the Museum of the Royal 
College of Surgeons of Edinburgh of the newly discovered cell-theory by the late 
distinguished Professor of Anatomy in Edinburgh, John Goodsir—his account of 
the production of ulceration by cell-growth, of the characters of the corpuscles of 
bone, of the structure of lymphatic glands, and of the germinal centres of base- 
ment membranes as they were then understood. This was the time when the 
teaching of Histology was first established in Great Britain. Two ‘students, of 
whom I was one, formed the first class under the most enthusiastic of teachers, my 
old friend Dr. Hughes Bennett. The University of Edinburgh had just passed 
through what was probably the most brilliant period in its history. The race of 
the last of the Munros was well nigh run; the great discoverer of the difference 
in the motor and sensory nerves, Sir Charles Bell, was still living; the aristocracy 
of Scotland had only just ceased to crowd the class-room and witness the brilliant 
and successful experiments of Dr. Hope. The day of Cullen, of Home, and Duncan, 
and Macintosh was over ; but there still remained in the University the most loved 
and revered of teachers, the benevolent Dr. Alison, Sir Robert Christison, Sir George 
Ballinghall, and Mr. Syme, Dr. Abercrombie still practising his profession in the 
city. 
At this period the great discoveries of Schleiden and Schwann seemed likely to 
upset all that had previously constituted Physiology. The idea that all tissues 
