286 Scientific Intelligence. 



Address of George Bentham, Esq., President, read at the Anniversm 

 Meeting of the Linncean Society, May 24, 1862.— A Botanist succeeding 

 to the chair ably filled for several years by a distinguished Zoologist, very 

 naturally and properly takes up his own department for his ilhislra- 

 tions when, upon such an occasion, he passes in review the principal 

 works and investigations in natural history recently produced, and when 

 he indicates some of the most promising "fields now open to the young 

 naturalist, especially to those who can devote but a portion of their time 

 to science. The survey, as would be expected, is candid and fair, the 

 advice eminently practical, and the particular example which he com- 

 mends — "the remarkable success which has attended the long-continued, 

 persevering, and well-combined observations of Mr. Darwin," which in de- 

 tecting "the wonderful contrivances for the cross-fertilization of Orchids," 

 "has revealed to us so much of surprising novelty in the economy of na- 

 ture" — contrivances "which had hitherto been unsuspected, even by 

 those botanists who had specially devoted themselves to that family— is 

 wonderfully stimulating. "And this," continues the President, "is but 

 a sample of that extraordinary variety of facts collected by him, and 

 brought to bear upon his theories, which must be patent to every impar- 

 tial reader of his works; whilst all who have had an opportunity of 

 watching his modus operandi are well aware that he never brings forward 



r precaution 



iccuracy, 



thoroughly sifting every circumstance that appears to militate against lu 

 It is indeed to be hoped that, without waiting for the completion of the 

 great work that is to embody the whole series of his pikes justijicalives, 

 Mr. Darwin will continue to illustrate separate portions of his subject, 

 each one of which is sufiicient to give a lasting name to its author. In 

 the meantime, let everv Inver nf naHiro «,Jif. t'rr>m his residence in *"* 

 ag, follow in the 

 and plants of our 

 venient for study, 



and devote our attention to their economy and development, to the com- 

 plicated structures disclosed by the microscope, and to those innumerab^a 

 influences which we term accidental, but which appear all to form p»" 

 of one general plan for the balance of power in the natural world." ^^ 



Darwin's theory of derivation of speci 



which eminent naturalists have thought it their duty to make. ^ <*•. 



4. Botany of Northeastern Asia.—lh^ Russian botanists are still acti'« 

 in researches and publications relating to the flora of that portion of tn 

 empire (including its newly-acquired territories) which approaches ^ort 

 America— botanicallv even more than geographically— and which « 

 must regard with peculiar interest. The Flora Ajanensis, (1858), a"" 

 the Primiti<B Floroe Amurensis, (1859), are now followed by Dr. ^f' 

 Tentamen Flor<e Ussuriensis, {1861, -pp. 228, imp. 4to, with 12 P'a'^' 

 separately issued from the Memoirs of the Imperial Academy, St. Vf^^'K 

 burgh), an account of the plants collected in the district of thej^f^uo 

 . oV.^''^'^*'^^ ^^ <^^'-«*' ^"d still later by the first part of the BoW 

 of Baddes Journeys in Southeastern Siberia, {Beisen in den Suden *» 



sidered and 



