The President's Address. By A. D. Michael. 9 
twenty-one Microscopes were exhibited, which was then thought a 
great thing. 
On the 15th of February, 1844, Lindley retired, and Thomas Bell 
was elected his successor ; he was born at Poole in Dorsetshire on 
11th October, 1792. His father was a surgeon, and he was educated 
as a surgeon-dentist. In 1815 he commenced lecturing at Guy’s 
Hospital on the anatomy and diseases of teeth ; he was appointed 
dental surgeon, and also lectured on comparative anatomy at the 
same hospital; and in 1836 he was appointed Professor of Zoology 
at King’s College. He was President of the Linnean Society from 
1853 to 1861. In 1828 he became a F.B.S., and was one of the 
•Secretaries of the .Royal Society from 1848 to 1853. Bell’s treatise 
on the anatomy, physiology, and diseases of the teeth appeared first ; 
his monograph of the Testudinata in the years 1836-42, his well- 
known works on British Quadrupeds and Reptiles in 1837 and 1839. 
He was joint editor with Forbes of Burmeister’s Trilobites for the 
Ray Society, and joint author with Owen of the fossil Reptilia of the 
London Clay for the Palseontographical Society, which also published 
his ‘Fossil Malacostracous Crustacea’; his ‘British Stalk-eyed Crus- 
tacea ’ appeared in 1853. He described the Reptilia of the ‘ Beagle ’ 
for the Government, and also the collections formed by the ‘ Assistance ’ 
during the search for Sir John Franklin. In 1866 he retired from 
his profession, and purchased The Waters, Selborne, from the grand- 
nieces of Gilbert White. The rest of his life was devoted to editing 
the 1877 edition of White’s ‘ Selborne.’ Bell died on the 13th March, 
1880, at the age of eighty-eight. 
We find Bell in his annual addresses impressing two things upon 
his hearers ; firstly, the extreme importance of using the Microscope 
more in pathology ; secondly, the great desirability of cheap Micro- 
scopes — a favourite subject with the Society and its successive Presi- 
dents, who worked earnestly at it for over a long period with great 
ultimate success ; although possibly some people might be inclined to 
think that Microscopes were cheap enough already, for Ehrenberg, 
who was the first Honorary Fellow of this Society, tells us that the 
instrument which he carried half over the world, and with which he 
made most of his wonderful discoveries, was purchased in the streets 
of Berlin for thirty shillings. 
On the 11th February, 1846, Bell retired, and Dr. James Scott 
Bowerbank was elected in his place. 
It has been said of Bowerbank that in science he was an amateur 
very near to the border of the professional ; he was one of the 
founders not only of the Microscopical Society, but also of the 
London Clay Club, which gave birth to the Palaeontographical Society, 
of which he was first Secretary and then President, and also of the 
Zoological Society. He was elected a F.R.S. in 1842, contributed 
many valuable papers to our Transactions and to those of the Royal, 
Linnean, Zoological, and Geological Societies ; but he is probably best 
