The President s Address. 
69 
observations on both animal and vegetable structure. Dr. 
BowerbanVs papers on Sponges and Shells have been the 
starting points of investigations which have resulted in most 
important generalisations on these subjects. Mr. Wenham^s 
paper^ on Cell-circulation^ and the development of cells^ 
have led to the re-consideration of some of the more important 
points involved in the nutrition and development of cells, and 
called forth the admirable resume of the whole subject of 
the cell-theory which you listened to from this chair three 
years ago by one of my predecessors. Dr. Carpenter. In the 
department of microscopic organisms our ' Transactions^ have 
been peculiarly rich, as the papers of Professor Huxley and 
Mr. Gosse on the Rotifera, and those of Professor Gregory, 
Dr.. Donkin, and Messrs. Roper, Shadbolt, Okeden, and 
others, on the Diatomacese, abundantly testify. The papers 
on the working of the microscope, especially on the subjects 
of illumination and micrometry, are, I believe, the most im- 
portant that have been published anywhere upon this de- 
partment of applied science. 
If it be thought by some that during the last few years 
the importance and interest of the papers have somewhat 
fallen off, a point that I think might well be contested, it 
should be remembered that the microscopic observer is no 
longer isolated. The first members of this Society have lived 
to see it introduced into all the societies where its aid can be 
of service. The Linnean Society possesses its microscope ; 
it is occasionally seen at the meetings of the Royal Society ; 
the members of the medical societies of the metropolis con- 
stantly use it; and the ^Transactions' of these societies abound 
with observations made by its aid. Some of our former 
members have even abandoned us, under the conviction that 
we have done our work, and that we may now safely trust 
tlie destinies of our instrument and its varied applications 
to other hands. It has also been a complaint that the JournaP 
which was started and has been carried on under your 
auspices, has absorbed some of the communications that 
ought to have been read and discussed at your meetings, and 
published in your ' Transactions.^ It should, however, be re- 
membered that the ' Journal' would hardly have existed but 
for your support ; that it is conducted by two of your mem- 
bers appointed by your council ; and that wdiatever value 
it possesses independent of your ' Transactions,' must be 
regarded as essentially connected with your influence and pro- 
ceedings. That it has increased your numbers, given a pre- 
cision and rapidity to the publication of your papers, and 
extended the objects for which the Society was founded, no 
