201 
Professor Williamson stated that, owing to the unexpected 
absence of his esteemed friend Mr. Sidebotham, he had been 
suddenly called upon to give the members of the Society an 
address at the opening of the session. With so short a warn- 
ing it was not an easy task ; still, as a few stimulating 
words might lead to extra exertion, he would make a few 
remarks on the present position of the microscopic observers. 
Their numbers in Manchester were necessarily small com- 
pared with London. Perhaps there were not twenty 
microscopists in this city really at work ; few were able 
to devote the time to the energetic and laborious efforts 
which original investigation required, and of these fewer 
had the talent or even the ambition to undertake what 
requires -weeks, months, nay, often years of arduous toil. The 
hindrances are increased by the fact, that there is rarely a 
definite end sufficiently certain of attainment in the way of a 
new discovery, calculated to repay the expenditure of labour. 
Hence, in a small society like ours, we cannot expect great 
or brilliant results. But further, the present is not an epoch 
like that when Ehrenberg revolutionised an entire branch of 
science, or when Greu laid the foundations of vegetable 
physiology, and Malpighi that of the animal kingdom. These 
men revealed entirely new fields of enquiry. But though no 
such new worlds of histology are opened out to us, there are 
such a multitude of secondary details requiring elucidation, 
that we cannot take up a plant or insect without stumbling 
upon a multiplicity of problems awaiting investigation. One 
shrewd observer, when eating his orange, discovers upon them 
some brown scales. He follows up the enquiry they suggest, 
and the result is an elaborate paper on the coccus of the 
orange. 
Even where members are not prepared for original 
researches, they still may do excellent service by examining 
the ground gone over by other men, whose view's require 
corroboration before their somewhat startling conclusions can 
