230 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



which all personal equation, aberration, and refraction was eliminated, and 

 through which, as it were, they gazed with a new vision into the 

 marvellous forms and processes of the living world ? With this 

 wondrous lens their countrymen, Cope and Marsh, penetrated into fossil 

 life. Then the arid deserts of the Rocky Mountains gave up their 

 petrified dead as proofs of Darwinism." At the conclusion of an eloquent 

 panegyric of Darwin, the speaker said the American delegates, naturalists, 

 and friends desired to present to Christ's College, as a memorial of their 

 visit, a portrait of Charles Darwin in bronze, the work of their country- 

 man, William Couper, a portrait which they trusted would convey to this 

 and future generations of Cambridge students some impression of the 

 rugged simplicity, as well as of the intellectual grandeur, of the man they 

 revered and honoured. 



Sir E. Ray Lankester concluded the proceedings by speaking on behalf 

 of the naturalists of the British Empire. His main contention was that 

 " in the judgment of the large majority of British naturalists, after fifty 

 years of examination and testing, Darwin's ' Theory of the Origin of 

 Species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured 

 races in the struggle for life,' remains whole and sound and convincing 

 in spite of every attempt to upset it." 



In the afternoon of the 23rd a garden party was given by the Master 

 (Dr. Peile) and Fellows of Christ's College in the college grounds. In 

 the first court, in which his rooms were open for visitors, was also a 

 collection of portraits, prints, and writings of Charles R. Darwin. A 

 printed catalogue described 257 objects, mainly supplied by his children. 

 The fine portrait by Hon. John Collier was lent by the Linnean Society. 



In the evening the great banquet to the delegates was held in the 

 New Examination Hall of the Museums building. Nearly 500 guests were 

 present. The toast of the evening was proposed by the Rt. Hon. A. J. 

 Balfour, as well as Dr. Svante Arrhenius, the head of the Nobel Institute 

 at Stockholm. The Chancellor (Lord Rayleigh) was of course in the 

 chair, being supported by the Vice- Chancellor (the Master of Pembroke), 

 Prince Roland Bonaparte, the Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour, the Duke of 

 Northumberland, Sir Archibald Geikie, and other distinguished men. 



After the usual loyal toast " The King," the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, 

 M.P., rose to propose a toast " In Memory of Charles Darwin." He began 

 by remarking that he " was conscious of but two qualifications which he 

 possessed for the task. The one was the deepest personal affection and 

 the most unstinted admiration for Darwin ; and the second was that he 

 yielded to no man in his loyal devotion to the University of which Charles 

 Darwin was one of the greatest ornaments." He then reviewed the 

 progress of science in the direction of physical origins. Turning again to 

 Charles Darwin he observed that " he had become part of the common 

 intellectual heritage of every man of education, wheresoever he might live 

 or whatsoever his occupation in life. The fact remained that to him they 

 traced — perhaps not to him alone, but to him in the main — a view which 

 had affected not merely our ideas of the development of living organisms, 

 but ideas of politics, ideas upon SDciology, ideas which covered the whole 

 domain of human terrestrial activity." Alluding to his personal qualities, 

 the speaker contributed his quota to Darwin's well-known traits by saying : 



