BOTANICAL WORK OP THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 471 



onesidedness. But when I survey the larger field of botany iu this 

 country, the prospect seems to me so vast that I should despair even if 

 I had my whole address at my disposal of doing it justice. I think 

 that its extent is measured by the way in which the publications 

 belonging to our subject are maintained. First of all, we have access 

 to the Koyal Society, a privilege of which I hope we shall always con- 

 tinue to take advantage for communications which either treat of fun- 

 damental subjects, or at least are of general interest to biologists. Next 

 to this we have our ancient Linneean Society, with a branch of its pub- 

 lications handsomely and efficiently devoted to systematic work. Then 

 we have the Aunals of Botany, which has now, I think, established its 

 position, and which brings together the chief morphological and physi- 

 ological work accomplished in the country. Lastly, we have the Jour- 

 nal of Botany, a less ambitious, but useful periodical, which is mainly 

 devoted to the labors of English botanists. I remember there was a 

 time when I thought that this, at any rate, was an exhausted field. 

 But it is not so; knowledge in its most limited aspects is inexhaustible 

 if the laborer have the necessary insight. The discoveries of Mr. 

 Arthur Bennett among the potamogetons of the eastern counties is a 

 striking and brilliant instance. 



Besides the publication of the Annals, we owe to the Oxford Press a 

 splendid series of the best foreign text-books issued in our own lan- 

 guage. If the thought has sometimes occurred to one's mind that we 

 were borrowers too freely from our indefatigable neighbors, I at least 

 remember that the late Professor Eichler paid us the compliment of 

 saying that he preferred to read one of these monumental books in 

 the English translation rather than in the original. I believe it is no 

 secret that botany owes the aid that Oxford has rendered it in these 

 and other "matters in great measure to my old friend the master of 

 Pembroke College, than whom I believe science has no more devoted 

 supporter. 



PALEOBOTANY. 



I have said much of recent botany; I must not pass over that of past 

 ages. Two notable workers in this field have passed away since our 

 last meeting. Saporta was with us at Manchester, and we shall not 

 readily forget his personal charm. If some of his work has about it a 

 too imaginative character, the patience and entire sincerity with which 

 he traced the origin of the existing forms of vegetation in southern 

 Europe to their ancestors in the not distant geological past will always 

 deserve attentive study. But in the venerable, yet always useful, 

 Williamson we lose a figure whose memory we shall long preserve. 

 With rare instinct he accumulated a wealth of material illustrative of 

 the vegetation of the Carboniferous epoch, which, I suppose, is unique 

 in the world. And this was prepared for examination with incompar- 

 able patience either by his own hands or under his own eyes. He 

 illustrated it with absolute fidelity. And if he did not in describing it 



