1885.] 



President's Address. 



279 



tive in Dr. Thomas Andrews, of Belfast. Among the cultivators of 

 Chemical Science we have to regret the decease of Mr. Field, who 

 was one of the original members of the Chemical Society ; of Mr. 

 Weldon, and of Dr. Voelcker, whose names are well known in con- 

 nexion with manufacturing and agricultural chemistry. In Biology, 

 we have lost Dr. Davidson, whose elaborate monographs on the fossil 

 Brachiopoda are remarkable examples of accurate malacological work 

 combined with artistic skill ; Dr. Grwyn Jeffreys, the veteran explorer 

 of our marine molluscous fauna, and a high authority on conchology ; 

 and Dr. Morrison Watson, whose early death has cut short the career 

 of an anatomist of much promise. Mineralogy has suffered a 

 similar loss by the premature death of Dr. Walter Flight. In 

 Engineering Science, we have to lament the deaths of Mr. Barlow 

 and Professor Fleeming Jenkin. I may be permitted to dwell for a 

 moment upon the latter name, as that of a most genial and accom- 

 plished man and a valued personal friend, with whom it had been my 

 privilege to be associated for a time in his well-directed and successful 

 efforts to improve the sanitary condition of our cities. The elder 

 generation of English geologists will remember the keen interest 

 which the Earl of Selkirk took in their pursuits. The death of Lord 

 Houghton robs us of a connecting link with all the world. 



Three very distinguished names have disappeared from the ranks 

 of our foreign members: that of Henle, of Gottingen, among whose 

 many merits must stand that of ranking next after Schwann among 

 the founders of histology ; that of the venerable Henry Milne- 

 Edwards, of Paris, one of the most distinguished members of the 

 school of Cuvier, and admirable no less for his contributions to 

 zoological philosophy than for the extent and the precision of his 

 additions to our knowledge of facts ; and lastly, that of Yon Siebold, 

 of Munich, whose remarkable investigations into the phenomena of 

 parasitism and of sexless reproduction brought about the solution of 

 some of the most difficult problems of zoology, while it would be 

 difficult to exaggerate the influence of his wonderfully accurate and 

 comprehensive " Handbook " on the progress of invertebrate zoology 

 forty years ago. 



On the 1st of December last year the total number of Fellows of 

 the Royal Society amounted to 519 ; of these 473 were on the home 

 and 46 on the foreign list. Deducting Her Majesty, our Patron, and 

 four other Royal personages, the number on the home list was 468. 

 At the present moment, we have 45 foreign members ; while the total 

 strength of the home list (deducting Royal personages) is 465, or 

 three fewer than twelve months ago. The number of deaths in the 

 home list during the past year is 20. This is a larger mortality than 

 that of last year ; and it still exceeds the number of Fellows added 

 to the Society by election, which during the past year was 16 ; 



