iv 



many years before, his hospitable house, first in Wellclose Square, and 

 afterwards at Claphara Rise, was the most frequented metropolitan 

 resort of naturalists from all quarters of the globe of any since Sir 

 Joseph Banks's day. His unpretending entertainments were frequent, for 

 many years periodic, and often weekly. On these occasions his many 

 scientific friends flocked to see himself, his live plants, and the many spe- 

 cimens, instruments, and preparations he had collected to instruct and 

 entertain them ; and on such occasions it was that many a country and 

 colonial naturalist was introduced for the first, and too often for the last 

 time in his life, to some of the most eminent naturalists in Europe. 



"Of the value of that contrivance which justly bears his name, the 

 Ward's case, it is impossible to speak too strongly ; and I feel safe in saying 

 that without its aid a large proportion of the most valuable economic and 

 other tropical plants, now cultivated in England, would not yet have been 

 introduced." " Of even more consequence was the application of these cases 

 to town gardening, whereby he has afforded to the denizens of this metro- 

 polis far greater and purer pleasures than all artists, house-decorators, &c 

 have contributed ; for a primrose placed in flower under a bell-glass at 

 Christmas in a London drawing-room will charm when a Raphael does not, 

 and will charm none the less when a Raphael charms also." "In the 

 memory of all who knew him, Mr. Ward will live as a type of a genial, 

 upright, and most amiable man, an accomplished practitioner, and an en- 

 thuiastic lover of nature in all its aspects." 



Mr. Robert Porrett was born on the 22nd September 1783. His 

 father held the office of Ordnance Storekeeper in the Tower, and resided 

 there ; and the son, having early shown an aptitude for such a situation, was 

 emploved as his father's assistant, and, succeeding him in his appointment, 

 eventuallv rose to be chief of the department. His official work, not being 

 of an engrossing nature, left him leisure to apply his intelligent and inquiring 

 mind to scientific pursuits, especially to chemistry ; and inasmuch as he 

 received a medal from the Society of Arts for a chemical discovery in 

 1809, he was probably at the time of his death the oldest representative 

 of experimental chemistry in this country. In fact he was a worker in che- 

 mistry before the introduction of the atomic theory, and was among the 

 first to apply the new doctrine to the verification of chemical analysis. 

 Mr. Porrett's earliest researches were on hydro-ferrocyanic and hydro- 

 sulphocyanic acids, of which he was the discoverer. The investigation of 

 the constitution of these acids (which he named ferruretted and sulphu- 

 retted chyazic acids) and of their salts forms the subject of various papers 

 which he contributed between 1809 and 1819 to the ' Philosophical Trans- 

 actions' and other scientific publications : they are as follows: — "OnPrussic 

 and Prussous Acid," Trans, of the Soc. of Arts, vol. xxvii. 1809, p. 89; 

 " On the Nature of the Salts termed triple Prussiates," &c, Phil. Trans. 

 1814, p. 527; " Further Analytical Experiments relative to the Constitution 



