Eatracts from Mr. Bentham’s Address. 325 
Art. XXXI.—Extracts from the Address of GEORGE BENTHAM, 
Esq., President of the Linnean Society, on the 20th of May, 
1870. 
Ir had been my intention on the present occasion to carry on 
the sketches of the general progress of biological science which 
I had attempted in 1862, 1864, 1866, and 1868; but - hei 
from various causes, been unable to devote so mu coke 
usual to the preparation of my Address, and feel obliged to 
confine myself to a few points connected with subjects of spe- 
or interest to myself, which, hr the last two or three years, 
ve made considerable advance 
“The most striking are, Without doubt, the results obtained 
om the recent explorations of the deep- sea faunas, and from 
the investigation of the tertiary deposits of the arctic regions, 
which, although affecting two very different branches of natu- 
ral science, I here couple together, as tending, both of them, to 
elucidate im a remarkable degree one of the most important 
among the disputed questions in biological history, the contin- 
uity of life through successive geological periods. 
‘An excellent general sketch of the first discovery and pro- 
gressive investigation of animal life at the bottom of the sea at 
great depths, up to the close of the season of 1868, is given oy 
Dr. Carpenter in the Proceedings of the Royal Socie , vo 
xvi, No. 107, for Dec. 17, 1868. The results of the still more 
im mportant expedition of the past year have as yet been only 
generally stated by Mr. Gwyn Jetfreys, in the numbers of ‘ Na- 
ture’ for Dec. 2 and 9, 1869, and by Dr. Carpenter, in a lecture 
to the Royal Institution, published in the numbers of ‘Scien- 
tific Opinion’ for March 28 and 80 and April 6 and 18 of the 
present year; and further details, as to the Madreporaria, are 
given by Mr. Duncan in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, 
vol. xvii, No. 118, for March 24 of the present year; bee 
in North America, the chief conclusions to be drawn from thes 
researches into the deep-sea fauna are clearly and concisely eaves 
merated By oe Ver in the grein Journal of Science for 
January last; and some of the more detailed reports of the 
American ‘explo a By Louis ac’ inTebandiet Agassiz and © 
others, have been published in ‘Be Bulletin of the Museum of 
Comparative —— at Harvard College, Nos. 6, 7, and 9 to 
18. For the owledge of the data farnished by t the rtiary 
deposits of oe as atte regions we are indebted almost eek 
re ~ acute “Sp ight . neat oe sa 
, in his ‘ Flora 4009 n the fossil 
pen collected i _W Wh; r in Nort Gresilend, pub- 
hed in the last part of Phe mer i No hical Transactions for 
