12 
Transactions of the Society . 
copies for the members, if the Society would contribute a certain sum 
towards the expenses ; this offer was accepted, and the arrangement 
continued down to the end of 1868, and although the growth of both 
the Journal and the Society produced financial difficulties, which 
finally forced a severance of the connection, yet the journal exists to- 
day in the enlarged form in which it is so ably conducted by Dr. 
Lankester’s son. The new journal did not improve the Society’s 
finances, and consequently it was rather with dismay that the Council, 
about this time, received a notice from the Horticultural Society that 
they must raise their rent ; the Society consequently removed to the 
rooms of the Chemical Society at 5 Cavendish Square ; but these rooms 
were found so inconvenient that after a year the Microscopical moved 
back to the Horticultural Society’s rooms, where they remained until 
the end of 1856, when the Horticultural Society sold its house in 
Regent Street. Then commenced the connection of the Microscopical 
Society with King’s College, which lasted until when, King’s College 
not being able to afford them accommodation any longer, the Society 
removed to its present rooms in Hanover Square. 
At this time (1853) we find the first contribution to our Transac- 
tions by Wheatstone, which I may stop to notice, for probably there 
never existed a mind more teeming with scientific constructive inven- 
tion than that of the inventor of the electric telegraph. 
It may be thought that eminent scientific men are not invariably 
the best men of business when we find that up to 26th October, 1853, 
no minute book of the meetings of the Society had been kept ; at that 
date one was started, and an endeavour was made to write it up for 
the back period, which was only partly successful, for we find in it an 
entry, “The minutes of meetings between 17th January, 1844, and 
26th October, 1853, are lost.” 
Dr. Carpenter succeeded Jackson as President. His is, of course, 
a leading name in microscopy, but his work continued up to such a 
late period, and he and it are so well remembered by almost all of you, 
that it would be idle for me to speak of it at any great length to-night. 
George Shadbolt was the next, and I believe that he is still one of 
our members. It was during his presidency that the Council pro- 
posed and successfully carried out the idea of having the screw known 
as the “ Society’s screw ” for the attachment of objectives, so that they 
might be interchangeable between Microscopes, which has been so 
great a boon to all English microscopists. It is perhaps to be regretted 
that the Society’s later efforts to make other pieces of apparatus 
interchangeable did not meet with equal success. About the same 
time Maltwood read his paper, “On a new form of Object-finder,” 
which has been of considerable service, even if somewhat superseded 
now. 
In 1858, when Dr. Lankester became President and Jabez Hogg 
was first elected on the Council, the Society possessed a library of 
sixty-eight works ; somewhat a contrast to its present condition. It 
