40 Address of the President at the Annual Meeting. 
or less affected ; so that we were thus suffering (if this be re- 
garded as any alleviation of our trouble) in the good company 
of the Royal, the Linnsean, and other first-rate associations. 
I would urge upon our Members, however, that the interest of 
our meetings can only be sustained by themselves ; we have no 
right to look for extraneous assistance ; and there is, I am con- 
fident, no lack of power amongst us, if it be only rightly directed, 
— a point on which I shall by-and-by dwell more at large. 
But I would also suggest to those distant friends to micro- 
scopic inquiry, who are in the habit of forwarding their valuable 
communications direct to the Journal, that it would much serve 
us, and would give to their discoveries a more immediate and 
a wider publicity, if they would communicate them in the 
first instance to the Microscopical Society (which they can 
always do through some Member, or through the editors of 
the Journal), so as to be read and discussed at our meetings. 
The only communication we have received, having reference 
to the improvements of the microscope, or of any of its adjuncts, 
is Mr. Wenham's valuable paper on Microscopic Photography ; 
which will, I doubt not, give a new impulse to the practice of 
this most interesting art. Having myself been one of the 
earliest labourers in this field, although circumstances have 
prevented me from continuing to cultivate it, I can fully con- 
firm what he says with regard to the superiority of solar light 
over any ordinary kind of artificial light. With low powers, 
indeed, and a sufficiently large condenser, I have found diffused 
daylight much superior to the direct rays of the sun : of course, 
a longer time is required for the production of a good picture ; 
but no adjustment is necessary for the change of the sun's 
place ; and the picture itself is much superior in tone to most 
of those taken by direct sunlight. It is much to be desired 
that the experiment should be tried, how far the electric light 
possesses such an amount of actinic power, as may make it an 
efficient substitute for the solar rays; the result of Mr. 
Wenham's experiments upon the effect of an intermitting dis- 
charge of a small Ley den jar, being sufficiently encouraging 
to render the trial of it highly desirable. 
Before passing to the review of that portion of our proceed- 
ings which will lead us to considerations of a very different 
order, I think it not inappropriate to make a few remarks upon 
certain tendencies which I observe at present among some of 
those who are most zealously devoted to microscopic research, 
and which seem to me to be likely to exert an injurious influ- 
ence upon the progress of science, if they be not kept within 
due bounds. I refer especially to that rage, if I may so desig- 
nate it, for object-glasses of the largest possible aperture, 
