Annual Report of the Council. xli 



substance in a suitable apparatus and measure the volume of air 

 it displaced. The advantages of the new method were speedily 

 recognized, and its use is now universal. It falls to the lot of 

 comparatively few chemists to invent an apparatus or discover a 

 process which is adopted in every laboratory ; this is certainly 

 the case with Liebig and with Bunsen, and to their honoured 

 names must be added that of Victor Meyer. F. J. 



By the death of Julius Sachs, on May 29th, 1897, one of 

 the most ardent workers in Botanical Science has been lost. 

 Not only have his labours largely enriched our knowledge of 

 Plant Physiology, which he had made his special study, but his 

 infectious enthusiasm for this branch of Botany has caused enor- 

 mous advances to be made by those Botanists who were privileged 

 to work under his stimulating guidance. Among these are 

 numbered most of the Vegetable Physiologists both of England 

 and the Continent, including such men as Francis Darwin, Vines, 

 Marshall Ward, Brefeld, Pfeffer and Reinke. Born in 1832, in 

 Breslau, Julius Sachs received from his father, an engraver, 

 considerable encouragement for the development of his artistic 

 faculties, and his early training in drawing and painting stood 

 him in good stead in afterUfe. His enthusiasm for Natural 

 History, however, was kindled by his intercourse with the sons 

 of the physiologist Purkynje, with whom he went out collecting 

 plants for the herbarium which he commenced while at school. 

 Later on, when Purkynje was appointed to the University of 

 Prague, he engaged Sachs as his draughtsman. His connection 

 with Purkynje no doubt determined the direction of his subse- 

 quent work, and, after having taken his degree at Prague, he 

 established himself there as lecturer in Vegetable Physiology — a 

 branch of Botany which it was usual at that time to dismiss with 

 a very few words. Largely owing to Sachs's labours, however. 

 Vegetable Physiology is now so extensive a subject that it forms 

 a very considerable portion of the study of Botany. 



From Prague Sachs proceeded to Tharandt in 1859, to 

 ^\T)rk out the agricultural bearings of Vegetable Physiology. He 



