18 Transactions of the Society. 
nected with the management of many scientific, philanthropic, and reli- 
gious institutes. 
He was much esteemed as a surgeon ; and was the inventor, forty 
years ago, of the “ bead suture,” which at that time was an advance in the 
scientific treatment of deep wounds. He invented those self-recording 
instruments which have been adopted at the Observatories of Greenwich, 
Paris, and other meteorological stations. They consisted of barometers, 
thermometers, psychrometers, and magnetometers which registered their 
variations by means of photography. His method obtained the premium 
offered by the Government for such apparatus, as well as a council medal 
from the jurors of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Mr. Brooke was the 
inventor of the double nose-piece for the Microscope. 
He contributed many papers on physical and electrical matters to 
the 4 Philosophical Magazine,’ ‘ Philosophical Transactions,’ ‘Proceedings 
of the Royal Society,’ and to the Reports of the British Association, &c. 
Mr. Brooke edited, and in fact re-wrote Dr. Golding Bird’s ‘ Elements 
of Natural Philosophy ’ (the fourth edition). 
Mr. Brooke died at Weymouth on the 17th May, 1879. 
Rev. Joseph Bancroft Reade, M.A., F.R.S. 
President 1869 - 70 . 
Mr. Reade was one of the original Fellows of the Society, and was 
elected the fifteenth President. He was born on 5th April, 1801, at Leeds 
in Yorkshire. He received his early education at the Leeds Grammar 
School, and subsequently matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge ; 
he obtained a scholarship at Caius College. He entered the ministry, 
and at the time of his death (on 12th December, 1870) he held the 
Rectory of Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury. He was elected a Fellow 
of the Royal Society in 1838. In 1837, whilst making photographic 
experiments with the solar Microscope, he discovered a mode of sepa- 
rating the rays of heat from those of light, so as to enable pictures to be 
taken with cemented achromatic objectives, and it was at this time that 
he made the first microphotographs. He also discovered the value of 
gallic acid as a sensitizer, and hyposulphite of soda as a fixer. At the 
Exhibition of 1851 he exhibited an astronomical eye-piece, of his own 
invention, called a solid eye-piece, which was thought very highly of. 
About 1861 he invented the hemispherical condenser for the Micro- 
scope. He subsequently improved this by adding two lenses to the 
hemisphere. In 1869 he invented the illuminating prism which now 
goes by his name. Besides contributing to our own Journal he also 
published many papers on botanical, chemical, and astronomical subjects 
in the Reports of the British Association, ‘ Proceedings of the Royal 
Society,’ 4 Philosophical Magazine,’ and other scientific publications. 
William Kitchen Parker, F.R.S. 
President 1871 - 2 . 
W. K. Parker was the sixteenth President of the Society. One of 
our ablest biologists is reported to have said, “ Tap Parker, and osteology 
will flow out for a fortnight.” Certainly no more accomplished com- 
