n8 Annual Report of the Council. 



Williamson's contributions to scientific knowledge 

 were both numerous and varied, and extended over an 

 unusually long series of years. His first papers were 

 written in 1834 — in his eighteenth year — and from that 

 time his pen was continuously active until within a short 

 time of his death in 1895. For many years his researches 

 were general rather than special, and were occupied 

 indifferently with geological, palasontological, zoological, 

 and botanical subjects. Of the scientific value of many 

 of these earlier efforts, the present writer is not in a 

 position to speak from personal knowledge, but their 

 merits appear to have been widely recognised at the 

 time of publication, and some of them are, even at this 

 day, well worth the attention of those who are interested 

 in the subjects with which they deal. Among these may 

 be mentioned the Monograph on " The Recent Forami- 

 nifera of Great Britain," published by the Ray Society in 

 1858; a paper on " Volvox globator," published in 1851 

 (Mem. Manch. Lit. and Phil. Socy., Vol. IX., Second 

 Series), in which the structure of that remarkable Alga 

 was accurately elucidated for the first time; three papers 

 on "Zamia gigas"; a memoir "On Some of the Micro- 

 scopical Objects found in the Mud of the Levant and 

 other Deposits, with remarks on the mode of formation 

 of Calcareous and Infusorial Siliceous Rocks" (Mem. 

 Manch. Lit. and Phil. Socy., Vol. VIII. , Second Series, 

 1845), which was one of the earliest attempts — if not 

 the first — to investigate some of the problems of the 

 naturalists : and papers "On the Histology of Dental and 

 sea-bottom which have since engaged the attention of 

 Allied Dermal Tissues of Vertebrate and Invertebrate 

 Animals" (British Journal of Dental Science, Vol. I., 1856-7). 

 By the middle of the century Williamson's scientific 

 reputation appears to have been fully established. In 

 1 85 1 he was appointed Professor of Natural History at 



