The Presidents Address. 
91 
ment of the session, the council have found it convenient to 
curtail the number of our meetings ; so that during the past 
year we have held but seven meetings, including the soiree at 
the South Kensington Museum, and the annual meeting on 
the 16th of February. Perhaps I may be allowed to say a 
word or two, first, with regard to the soiree. From the cir- 
cumstance of the council having determined to hold this an- 
nual gathering in the extensive rooms of the Museum at 
South Kensington, which were placed at their disposal by the 
Committee of Council on Education, it was one of the 
largest meetings of the kind that had ever been seen in the 
metropolis. About three thousand persons were present, and 
the display of microscopes, and their accessory apparatus, was 
such as had never been got together before. Upwards of 
three hundred microscopes, exhibiting all the forms and ap- 
plications of the instrument, were displayed. Although this 
exhibition of the instrument, and the assemblage of so large a 
number of patrons, might, consistently with the objects of 
your Society, have been purchased by a considerable outlay of 
funds, it must be gratifying to you to hear that, by the judi- 
cious arrangements of your council and the liberality of indi- 
vidual members, this immense meeting has not only not 
entailed on your funds any loss, but that you have been 
gainers by it to a slight amount. 
As the ordinary meeting-nights of the past year have been 
only six, including the first meeting of this year, you will not 
be surprised to learn that only ten papers have been read. 
The first paper was by Dr. Bowerbank, " On the Organiza- 
tion of Grantia ciliata/' and contained a more detailed ac- 
count of the structure of this curious member of the sponge 
family than had hitherto been published. To Dr. Bowerbank 
belongs the credit of having studied this interesting family of 
organized beings in the most exhaustive manner ; and it will 
be gratifying to all present to know that he is now preparing 
a complete monograph of the British forms of sponges, which 
will be published by the Eay Society for the year 1861. 
Our next paper was one " On Diatomacess collected in the 
United States,'^ by Arthur M. Edwards, Esq. Besides this 
paper from the other side of the Atlantic, we have had an- 
other read, On Diatomacese found near Gambia, Ohio," by 
Professor Hamilton L. Smith. These papers are interesting, 
as giving an account of the distribution of the Diatomaccce in 
the New World, and they have been received by our Society 
as a gratifying proof that our aims and objects are recipro- 
cated and understood by scientific inquirers in America. Dr. 
