part 2] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. Hi 



from the Coal Measures. He was the first to recognize the true- 

 morphological nature of the tissue of the problematical Silurian 

 and Devonian genus Nematophycus, a discovery which involved 

 him in a length}' - , though by no means dull, controversjr with the 

 late Sir William Dawson. He ranged over the whole domain of 

 the plant-kingdom, and applied his extensive knowledge of existing 

 forms to the interpretation of palaeobotanical records succes- 

 sively from Silurian to Tertiary strata. The services of Car- 

 ruth ers to the Botany of the past cannot be adequately measured 

 by reference to his published work. After he ceased to publish 

 original papers on palaeobotanical subjects, he continued to exert a 

 considerable influence upon younger workers. As I can gratefully 

 testify, by his uniform kindness and generosity, by giving to the 

 less experienced the benefit of his fuller knowledge, and by placing 

 unreservedly at their disposal material accumulated for his own 

 researches, he did what he could to imbue students with something 

 of his own wisdom and enthusiasm. It is difficult to make a 

 selection, for special mention, from the variety of subjects on 

 which Carruthers wrote ; but I venture to think that his papers 

 on the Mesozoic Cycadophyta played the most conspicuous 

 part in placing his name among the leaders of palaeobotanical 

 investigations. 



A full account of the botanical work of Dr. Carruthers will 

 be found in a very interesting article ' In Memory of William 

 Carruthers ', by Mr. James Britten, in the Journal of Botany 

 for September, 1922. 



Thomas Vincent Holmes was born at Kirklinton Hall (Cum- 

 berland) on May 18th, 1843 ; he died at Greenwich on January 

 24th, 1923. He was educated at a private school at Mitcham 

 (Surrey) and at King's College, London. While at College he was 

 a keen Volunteer, reaching the rank of sergeant in the College 

 company of the Westminster Bifles. From his youth he was of 

 a studious nature, and a great reader throughout his life. He 

 married his cousin, Mary Winder, in 1868 : her life was a short 

 one, and in 1873 he married his second wife, with whom he lived 

 for nearly fifty years, until her death on Christmas Day, 1922, 

 about four weeks before his own. In April 1868 he joined the 

 Geological Survey, on which he served until July 1879. His work 

 was chiefly in Cumberland, but he was also concerned with 

 mapping the Yorkshire Coalfield. Long after leaving the Survey 



