8 
Transactions of the Society. 
equally, or perhaps even more, important optical and mechanical 
papers came more slowly and later. 
In this year (1811) we first find the name of Michael Faraday 
among our Members, and in September and October of this year it was 
determined that the Society should publish its Transactions in royal 
octavo, as it does to-day ; this arrangement lasted for ten years. Those 
who will look at Leonard’s illustrations to Quekett’s papers on the 
intimate structure of bone, on the capillaries in the gills of fishes, and 
on the vascularity of the capsule of the crystalline lens in Beptilia, 
or at George Busk’s illustrations to his papers on Notamia hursaria 
and Anguinaria sjoatulata, or Warren de la Bue’s to his paper on 
the markings on the scales of Amathusia .Horsfieldii, may not im- 
probably think that the advance in illustration up to this time is 
more conspicuous in quantity than in quality ; but this I fear is the 
same with almost all English scientific drawings ; those of forty or 
fifty years ago compare not unfavourably with those which are now 
appearing. 
On the 15th February, 1842, Owen retired, and Dr. John Lindley 
was elected President ; he was the son of a nurseryman, and was born 
at Catton, near Norwich, on the 5th February, 1799, and educated at 
the Grammar School of Norwich ; which he left at the age of sixteen, 
and was then employed for three or four years in his father’s nursery. 
His father failing in business, Lindley was thrown on his own resources. 
He proceeded to London in 1819, and obtained from Sir Joseph 
Banks the position of his assistant librarian. At this early age he 
began the long series of works with which his name is identified by 
the publication of a translation of Bichard’s ^Analyse du Fruit,’ made 
at one sitting, which, however, lasted two days and three nights. 
In 1822 Lindley became Garden- Assistant-Secretary to the Horti- 
cultural Society, and in 1826 he became sole Assistant Secretary. He 
was elected a F.B.S. in 1828; became in 1829 Professor of Botany in 
University College, which appointment he held for upwards of thirty 
years. His 4 Synopsis of the British Flora,’ published in 1829, was 
followed by an 4 Introduction to the Natural System of Botany ’ in 
1830, which ultimately took the form of 4 The Vegetable Kingdom,’ 
probably the best known of his works. In 1831 he produced, with 
the aid of Mr. Hutton, the well-known 4 Fossil Flora of Great Britain,’ 
and he published numerous other general works and papers. In 1857 
the Boyal Medal of the Boyal Society was awarded him. He was a 
juror of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and undertook the Colonial 
Department of that of 1862 ; but the strain was too much, and he 
never recovered it. He died on November 1st, 1865. 
During Lindley ’s presidency we find a committee, consisting of 
Owen, Quekett, and Bymer Jones, appointed to investigate the structure 
of shell; we also find for the first time the name of Edward Forbes, 
who soon became a member of the Council and a contributor to the 
Transactions; and then was held the Society’s first soiree , where 
