president’s address. 
375 
architecture, and technical art. In this respect a new world was 
revealed by the great advance of microscopic research in the 
second half of the century, and especially by the discovery of the 
marvellous inhabitants of the deep sea, which were first brought 
to light by the famous exploration of the Challenger (1872-1876). 
Thousands of graceful radiolaria and thalamophora, of pretty 
medusae and corals, of extraordinary molluscs, and crabs, 
suddenly introduced us to a wealth of hidden organisms beyond 
all anticipation, the peculiar beauty and divinity of which far 
transcend all the creations of the human imagination. In the 
fifty large volumes of the account of the Challenger expedition, 
a vast number of these beautiful forms are delineated on three 
thousand plates ; and there are millions of other lovely organ- 
isms described in other great works that are included in the fast- 
growing literature of zoology and botany of the last ten years. 
. . . . A man needs only to keep his eyes open and his mind 
disciplined. Surrounding nature offers us everywhere a marvel- 
lous wealth of lovely and interesting objects of all kinds. In 
every bit of moss and blade of grass, in every beetle and butterfly 
we find, when we examine it carefully, beauties which are usually 
overlooked. Above all, when we examine i't carefully with a 
powerful glass, or, better still, with a good microscope, we find 
everywhere in nature a new world of inexhaustible charms. 
“ But the nineteenth century has not only opened our eyes to 
the aesthetic enjoyment of the microscopic world; it has shown us 
the beauty of the greatest objects in nature. Even at its com- 
mencement it was the fashion to regard the mountains as magnifi- 
cent, but forbidding, and the sea as sublime, but dreaded. At 
its close the majority of educated people — especially they who 
dwell in the great cities — are delighted to enjoy the glories of 
the Alps and the crystal splendor of the glacier world for a 
fortnight every year, or to drink in the majesty of the ocean and 
the lovely scenery of its coasts. All these sources of the keenest 
enjoyment of nature have only recently been revealed to us in, all 
their splendor, and the remarkable progress we have made in 
facility and rapidity of conveyance have given even the less 
wealthy an opportunity of approaching them. All this progress 
in the esthetic enjoyment of nature — and proportionately, in the 
