102 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 



At the risk of being thought discursive or digressive, I beg leave 

 to refer to an event of great interest, with which we may be all 

 more or less familiar, which makes us better acquainted with 

 microscopic revelations, and brings us so close to the beginning of 

 life, that the power to produce it from lifeless elements appears 

 to be almost within our grasp. 



The English papers, by the royal mail steamship which arrived 

 early in September, are occupied with lengthy accounts of the 

 anniversary meeting of the British Association at Sheffield on 

 the 20th August. These anniversaries have lost none of their 

 interest for the British people. We learn from them the import- 

 ance attached by all classes to scientific investigations. The 

 Press uses its powerful combinations to spread abroad, with the 

 utmost rapidity, over all the Empire, and to foreign countries, 

 full details of the proceedings, employing for that purpose the 

 energies which art and science have placed at its disposal. The 

 railway and locomotive, the marine engine and screw propeller, 

 the ocean cable and electric telegraph, all triumphs of science 

 and genius within a centur}-, engage in the work. Photography 

 also, takes the portraits of the President and other scientists of 

 the Association, and then by electro-metallurgy makes them typo- 

 graphy, placing before us in a newspaper correct likenesses of the 

 men who, in Great Britain, contribute to the scientific advance- 

 ment of the nation. Do we desire to know the subjects which 

 engage the minds of these men ? The press communicates them 

 in twenty-four hours after their delivery. They reach us by 

 electric telegraph as quickly on this side of the Atlantic. In 

 twelve days at farthest, by steam navigation. I may call all this 

 the artistic application of Natural Science. The substance of the 

 President's address is before me. It treats of Protoplasm. He 

 describes " Protoplasm, or living matter, as lying at the base of 

 all living phenomena." * * "a tangible and visible realit} 7 , which 

 the chemist may analyse in his laboratory, the biologist scrutinize 

 beneath his microscope and dissecting needle. All over the world, 

 in fresh water and in salt, minute particles of protoplasm may be 

 detected. In the famous amoeba, which has arrested the atten- 

 tion of naturalists, almost from the commencement of microscopi- 

 cal observation, we have the essential characters of a cell, the 

 morphological unit of organization, the physiological source of 

 unicellular existence. But cells combine into organs, and organs 

 into animals. Yet in the most complex animal the cell retains 

 its individuality. * * * * 



This, though not entirely new, is a lucid description of 



