August 9, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



149 



To the discussion of Dr. Scott's paper 

 considei-able scope was given, and the ques- 

 tion involved in the above extracts from 

 this letter occupied the attention of the 

 members. Being called upon by the court- 

 eous President of the Section, Prof. Isaac 

 Bailey Balfour, to make some remarks, and 

 having little to say further than to express 

 my great interest in the subject, I felt that 

 I could not better contribute to the discus- 

 sion than by reading the above extract, 

 which I took the liberty to do. 



Although Professor "Williamson's labors 

 were so largely confined during the last 25 

 years of his life to the preparation of this 

 series of memoirs, it must not be supposed 

 that this was all he accomplished. The 

 number of his minor contributions during 

 this period is very large indeed, and several 

 of these papers are of great importance. 

 Especially is this the case with his Mono- 

 gi-aph of the ' Morphology and Histology of 

 Stujmaria Jieoides,' published in 1887, which 

 is by far the most complete treatise thus far 

 known on this subject. The total number 

 of his titles, so far as I have been able to 

 collect them together, does not fall far short 

 of 150. This is exclusive of all papers re- 

 lating to other- branches of science, of which 

 there is a great number, including many 

 addresses and lectures. But nearly all of 

 his papers are devoted to setting forth the 

 results of special investigations, chiefly 

 microscopic, upon a great variety of ma- 

 terial, which, by the aid of a large corps of 

 trusted collaborators and collectors, he had 

 accumulated in his cabinet. He rarely in- 

 dulged in philosophic discussion, but on one 

 or two occasions be took a broad view and 

 expressed himself on the larger subjects con- 

 nected with his lifework. This was no- 

 tably the case in his address on ' Primeval 

 Vegetation in its Eelation to the Doctrines 

 of Natural Selection and Evolution,' pub- 

 lished in a volume of Essays and Addresses 

 by Professors in Owens College, Manchester, 



in 1874, and reviewed by Dr. Asa Gray in 

 the 'American Journal of Science' in the same 

 year.* To the same class also belonged his 

 ' Primitive Ancestors of Living Plants and 

 their Relations to the Doctrine of Evolution,' 

 published in the ' Revue Internationale des 

 sciences biologiques' for September, 1883, 

 but there was scarcely a subject in the whole 

 range of paleobotany which had been prom- 

 inently brought forward by other writers' 

 upon which he had not expressed his opinion. 



Only once was it my good fortune to meet 

 Professor Williamson. On the occasion re- 

 ferred to, when I met Dr. Scott at Oxford 

 and had appointed a day to examine with 

 him at the Jodrell Laboratory the micro- 

 scopic slides of Bennettites Gihsoni and other 

 species prepared by Count Solms-Laubach, 

 which were in his hands. Dr. Scott, without 

 my knowledge, notified Professor "William- 

 son of this appointment, and when I reached 

 Kew, to my great delight, I found him. 

 there. The two or three hours which I 

 spent in his society can only be character- 

 ized as charming. Many subjects were dis- 

 cussed, among the most interesting being 

 his fi'iendly differences with the French 

 paleobotanists, and he related in a playful 

 manner how he had gone about it to secure 

 the publication of one of his most telling re- 

 plies to the French School in the ' Annales 

 des sciences naturelles,' in which they them- 

 selves chiefly published — a bomb, as it were, 

 in the enemy's camp. In parting he said 

 to me with moisture in his eyes, " "We shall 

 never see each other again." And so it has 

 proved. 



If I were to specify which one of the 

 many important discoveries that Professor 

 Williamson has made in the field of paleo- 

 botany ought to be regarded as the most 

 valuable, I should uot hesitate to name his 

 demonstration of the existence of exogen- 

 ous structure in the Carboniferous Pterido- 

 phytes, or, more broadly stated, the irrefrag- 



*3cl Ser., Vol. VIII., pp. 150-151. 



