The President's Address ^ 
89 
should have the opportunity of consulting these precious 
volumes in our own library. The works that were the 
result of this activity are^ I believe^ tolerably completely 
represented in our catalogue. The first to which I would 
call your attention is the ' Micrographia ' of Robert Hooke, 
published in 1665^ and which, considering that it was the 
first work devoted to the literature of the microscope, 
is a perfect marvel. Its illustrations and the sound obser- 
vations of the author may be studied with advantage at 
the present day. This was followed by the works of Grew 
and Malpighi on the Anatomy of Plants. Although Malpighi 
was a foreigner, his works were published by the Royal 
Society of London ; they consisted mostly of papers which 
had appeared in the ' Philosophical Transactions.^ He was 
the first to observe the passage of the blood through the 
capillary vessels, and his works otherwise abound with sound 
observations. In 1675 the communications of another dis- 
tinguished foreigner commenced in the ^Philosophical Trans- 
actions/ and we may claim Leeuwenhoek almost as an English 
writer. His collected works will be found in our library, and 
contain an astonishing variety of observations on animal and 
vegetable structure. During this century Swammerdam wrote 
his treatises on insects, and made many curious observations 
with the microscope on the generation of the frog and other 
animals. 
These researches bring us over the seventeenth, and carry 
us on to the commencement of the eighteenth century. Here 
we meet with the investigations of Trembley, on the Plydra ; 
of Lyonet, on the Caterpillar of the Goat-moth; and of Spal- 
lanzani, on a variety of subjects. The latter was the first to 
maintain the independent animal nature of the Infusoria, and 
contributed a large number of observations on the function 
of animal impregnation. The works of Baker and the two 
Adamses close the labours, as far as our library will indicate 
them, of the eighteenth century, on microscopic subjects. 
If we now turn over the pages of our catalogue, we in vain 
look for the continued activity of the preceding period. Ob- 
servers seemed to think the microscope had done all for 
science that could be accomplished by its aid. It is true, the 
instrument was not forgotten. There were those who believed, 
if its powers could be increased, much more might be done by 
its aid. Brewster, Pritchard, Goring, T alley, and others, 
worked at the construction of lenses, in the faith that more 
might be accomplished by its aid than had hitherto been 
supposed. Here and there observers were working unnoticed. 
Robert Brown was laying the foundation of the science of 
