68 
The Pi^esidenf s Address. 
neglect tliat is scarcely equalled in any civilised country in 
the world. But there were men amongst us who appreciated 
the importance of the microscope in relation to natural science; 
they saw the magnificent future it opened up in inquiries 
into the life of plants and animals_, and they determined to 
band themselves together for the purpose of cultivating more 
exclusively those parts of science which demanded its use. 
Amongst these I may name Joseph Jackson Lister^ Nathaniel 
Bagster Ward (our respected Treasurer) ^ James Scott 
Bowerbank, the two Queketts_, William Sharpey, John 
Lindley^ Richard Owen, Thomas Bell, George Busk, Arthur 
Farre, George Jackson, John Dah-ymple, Joseph Tomes, 
Robert Warington, Cornelius Varley^ Andrew Boss, Bichard 
Horsman Solly, and a number of others. Some have died 
leaving an imperishable name on account of their microscopi- 
cal researches, but the majority remain to bear testimony to 
the great results which have flowed from the introduction of 
the microscope as an instrument of research. 
Our Society was established in 1840, under the presidency 
of Professor Owen, who, by his great work on ^Odontography,' 
in which he was the first to apply the microscope to the 
unravelling the structure and development of the teeth, had 
justly earned for himself the position of a leader amongst 
those devoted to microscopical investigation. The first two 
papers published in our ^ Transactions^ were by Edwin John. 
Quekett, and John Dalrymple, whose premature death we 
have had to deplore. Since that time, to the end of 1857, 
the Society has published in its ^Transactions^ one hundred 
and thirty papers. Of these, forty- one have been devoted to 
animal structure and physiology, thirteen to the forms of 
minute animals, seventeen to the structure and physiology of 
plants, twenty-three to the forms of microscopic plants, three 
have been descriptive of fossil animals, seven of fossil plants, 
and twenty-two have referred to the structure and working 
arrangements of the microscope. Amongst papers which, on 
account of their excellence, have been selected from others 
for publication, it may be thought invidious to select any for 
remark ; but I cannot refrain from drawing attention to the 
important papers of our former president. Professor Busk, 
on the structure of some forms of Polyzoa and Medusae, on 
the development of Echinococcus and Filaria, and on the 
structure of the Starch. Also his and Professor Williamson^s 
researches on the structure of Volvox globator, which have 
settled the debated question of the vegetable nature of this 
interesting organism. Our laborious Secretary has enriched 
the pages of our ^ Transactions^ with a series of valuable 
