Annual Report of the Council. 115 



British Association, in 1837, he contributed a section of 

 the carboniferous strata of Western Lancashire from its 

 highest beds at Ardwick down nearly to the millstone grit. 

 About the same time he contributed " A notice of two 

 hitherto undescribed species of Radiaria, from the marl- 

 stones of Yorkshire . . . "in Vol. IX. of the 

 Magazine of Natural History. This is by no means an 

 exhaustive list of his contributions to science, but it is a 

 fine record of the work of a rising surgeon done before he 

 had passed the twenty-sixth anniversary of his birthday. 



About this period of his life he turned his attention to 

 a group of studies which required the aid of a compound 

 microscope. His instrument, far from being "fearfully 

 and wonderfully made," like so many modern instru- 

 ments, was a monocular of simple construction, but he 

 worked with it up to the close of his life, and it was his 

 constant companion in working out the life-history of 

 sponges, diatoms, foraminifera, and the plants of the 

 coal-measures. In after years its owner made it the text 

 of many a homily for the benefit of his students, enforcing 

 what could be done with a simple instrument and limited 

 means, if only the eye that was using it knew how to 

 interpret the structures which came within its field of 

 view. One of the earliest papers giving the results of the 

 use of the microscope appears to have been that published 

 in 1845, in the eighth volume, Second Series, of our own 

 Memoirs, "On some of the microscopical objects found 

 in the mud of the Levant, and other deposits, with 

 remarks on the mode of formation of calcareous and 

 infusorial siliceous rocks." This was followed in 1846 

 by one "On the real nature of the minute bodies in 

 flints, supposed to be sponge spicules," which is printed 

 in Vol. XVII. of the Annals of Natural History. Two 

 years later he published a paper on a diatom in the same 

 journal, "On a new British species of Campy 1 discus." 



