452 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ May 31, 1888> 
years, uninterruptedly manifested its vigorous life, extending its useful 
activity more and more over the whole globe. The precious gift of Sir 
James Edward Smith was indeed a noble seed, since grown up into a 
strong plant, which has borne flowers and fruits from year to year in 
abundance. Its vitality is a guarantee that it vrill thrive and flourish, 
so long as the Linnasa borealis, ever green, spreads its fragrance over 
young and old, high and low, rich and poor, in the mighty forests of the 
north. (Cheers.) 
Sir Joseph Hooker pronounced the eulogium on Robert Brown, who 
was recognised as the greatest botanist of his age. Passing over the 
life, history, and personality of Robert Brown, the eulogist gave some 
account of his investigations and discoveries relating to the morphology, 
classification, and distribution of plants, and especially to their repro¬ 
ductive organs, their structure and economy—investigations which dis¬ 
play an untiring industry, an accuracy of observation and exposition, a 
keenness of perception, together with sagacity, caution, and soundness 
of judgment, in which he has not been surpassed by any botanical 
writer. Where others have advanced beyond the goal he attained to, it 
has been by working on the foundations he laid, by the light and aids 
of correlative advances in chemistry and physics, and by the use of 
optical instruments unknown in his day. His collection of about 4000 
species of plants belonging to all orders, and three-fourths of them new 
to science, in nine years, was a feat unexampled in the history of bota¬ 
nical science. In the course of a detailed review of his works the Pro¬ 
fessor gave some personal reminiscences, including these“ His 
appetite for acquiring botanical knowledge amounted, 1 believe, to 
voracity, while his wonderful memory enabled him to retain, and his 
methodical faculties to classify all he had acquired. Of that memory 
and of his readiness in utilising it I had, thanks to his kindness, much 
experience. He seemed to me never to forget a plant that presented 
any feature of interest if he had but once seen it, and he could single 
out the specimen that he had examined from a sheet full of duplicates. 
It was the same with books ; those of the old authors especially, as Ray, 
Linnaeus, Rumph, and Rheede, they were all familiar to him, and he could 
often turn to a volume, and sometimes to a page, for a statement or 
figure without the aid of a reference. Thus, at the age of twentj -eight, 
when he sailed for Australia, it was as an accomplished botanist.’ 
Professor Flower pronounced the eulogy on Charles Darwfln, who, he 
said, had special claims on their consideration, inasmuch as a large and 
very important portion of his work ovas first communicated to the world 
by means of papers read at their meetings and published in their journal. 
His life and work, however, were so familiar and had been exhaustively 
treated so recently, that the task assigned him could be discharged with 
a brevity which would be by no means the measure of their appreciation. 
They were concerned chiefly with those great characteristics of Darwin 
which dominated all others and made him what he was—the consuming, 
irrepressible longing to unravel the mysteries of living nature, to penel 
trate the shroud which conceals the causes and methods by which al- 
the wonders and all the diversity, all the beauty, yea, and all the de- 
forfnity too, which we see around us in the life of animals and plants, 
have been brought about. Against our ignorance on those subjects his 
life was one long battle ; the work of others, by comparison, was irre¬ 
gular guerilla warfare. His main victory was the destruction of the 
conception of species as being beyond certain narrow limits fixed and 
unchangeable—a conviction which prevailed almost universally before 
his time. It might be admitted that others had prepared the way, and 
that the work was carried on simultaneously by others who might have 
attained to the same conclusion ; but the fact remained that he was the 
main agent in the conversion of almost the whole scientific world from 
one conception to a totally opposite conception of one of the most im¬ 
portant operations of Nature. Such a revolution, with its momentous 
consequences to the study of zoology and Ixitany, was without .a parallel 
in the history of science. This rapid conversion was much facilitated 
by the fascinating nature of the theory of the operation of natural 
selection in intensifying and fixing variation as originally propounded 
in the rooms of the Society independently and simultaneously by Darwin 
and by Wallace. The theory had been subjected to keen criticism, and 
difficulties had undoubtedly been shown in accepting it as the complete 
explanation of many of the phenomena of evolution. That other factors 
had teen at work besides natural selection in bringing about the present 
condition of the organic world probably everyone would now admit, as 
as indeed Darwin did himself. That, however, was not the occasion to 
examine so complex a subject, and indeed the time seemed scarcely yet 
to have come when it could be done with the necessary calmness and 
impartiality. But Darwin’s work and the controversies that had gathered 
round it had proved a marvellous stimulus to research. Though he did 
not, as it had been too rashly said, tear down the curtain which obscured 
our gaze and lay bare the birth of life, he had lifted the veil here and 
there and givra us glimpses which would light the path of those who 
followed in his steps, and, more than this, he showed by his life and by 
nis work the true methods by which alone th e se crets of Nature may be 
won. (Cheers.) 
Professor Thiselton Dyer delivered the eulogy on George Bentham, 
whose friendship he had enjoyed. A nephew of Jeremy Bentham, he 
was early imbued with a taste for methodising and analysing, and 
through his mother’s fondness for plants and the attraction which their 
classification had for him he was led to study them with marvellous 
results. He was President of the Linnean Society from 1863 to 1874, 
and his devotion to its interests knew no bounds. He shrank from no 
labour; he indexed the first twenty-five volumes of the Society’s 
Transactions ; and he delivered a valuable series of addresses. He stood 
in the footsteps of Linnaeus ; and, although the descent was oblique, he 
inherited the mantle of the master whose memory was that day com 
memorated. (Cheers). n" 
On the motion of Professor St. George Mivart, seconded bytMr 
Grant Duff, thanks were voted to the authors of these eulogies. 
Then followed the presentation of Linnean gold medals to Sir R. 
Owen as a zoologist, and Sir J. Hooker as a botanist. 
The President explained that it had been determined to establish a 
Linnean gold medal to be presented in subsequent years alternately to 
a botanist and a zoologist; but on this occasion two were to be pre¬ 
sented, and there had not been any question in the Council as to wha 
the first recipients were to be. The medal had on one side a portrait of 
Linnaeus, taken from the bust in the room, and on the reverse the arms 
of the Society surrounded by the Linnaea borealis. The President first 
made the presentation to Professor Owen, recounting his distinctions 
and scientific services, and handed him the medal amid loud cheers. 
Professor Owen, who was much affected, expressed his high sense of 
the honour conferred upon him, and thanked the Fellows for their 
cordial reception. 
The President then made the presentation to Sir J. Hooker, recapitu¬ 
lating his services to science. 
Sir J. Hooker, who was warmly cheered, returned his cordial thanks 
to the Council and the Society. 
This terminated the proceedings. 
In the evening the annual dinner was held at the “ Hotel Victoria,’' 
the President being supported by Sir John Lubbock, Sir Joseph Hooker,. 
Professor Flower, Professor P. M. Duncan, and Mr. St. George Mivart. 
The toasts of “ The Queen ” as patron of the Society, “The memory of 
Linnaeus,” and “ The Linnean Society ” having been duly honoured. 
Professor Duncan proposed “ The health of the Linnean Medallists,” Sir 
Richard Owen and Sir Joseph Hooker. He recalled the time more thart 
forty years ago when, as one of a band of noisy medical students, he 
sat upon the gallery of the Royal College of Surgeons and saw a 
wonderful company of men, including judges, bishops, lawyers, and 
medical men, assembled to hear the marvellous lectures of Professor 
Owen in his prime, characterised by fine delivery, wonderful powers of 
description, and grand generalisation. To him he owed his love of 
natural history. For long his name had been synonymous with British 
science to vast numbers of people wherever science was esteemed. To. 
him the medical profession owed much of its modern development 
through its greatly increased interest in physiological science. As 
regarded Sir Joseph Hooker, he could not refrain from mentioning his 
exquisite Himalayan journals as among the two or three most charming 
books of travel and science in the language. Sir Joseph Hooker, in 
responding, said the reception ofHhe medal had given him a gratification, 
of a peculiar kind, which no other society could have afforded, inasmuch 
as his father, grandfather, father-in-law, and uncle had teen Fellows, 
he had personally known eight of its Presidents, and many of his o\vn 
papers had owed their publication to the Society. Moreover, it was Sir 
J. E. Smith, the founder, who had induced his father to take up the 
study of botany. He was grateful also to the memory of Linnteus for 
his own early studies in botany, which were made with aipin and flowers, 
making out their parts and names according to the Linnean system; 
and that he believed to be the most valuable way of beginning. Sir 
John Lubbock proposed “ The Health of the President, Oflficers, and 
Council of the Society,” to which Mr. Crisp, the Treasurer, replied, and 
the proceedings closed. 
. CONVERSAZIONE. 
The President and officers of the Linnean Society gave a conversa¬ 
zione on Friday night at their rooms in Burlington House. All the 
memorials of Linnasus in the possession of the Society were exhibited, 
together with many other interesting objects. 
Among the more interesting exhibits were the personal relics of 
Linnmus, including a small interleaved .almanack for the year 1735, the 
year of Linnfeus’s betrothal to Sara Lisa Moraea, his journey to the 
Netherlands, his doctorate, and the issue of the first edition of the 
“ Systema Naturae.” Linn.mus’s walking-stick, presented by Professor 
Hartman in 1849, is said to have teen cut and carved by himself during 
his journey through Lapland in 1732. The carved rhinoceros horn, of 
Chinese workmanship, is an excellent specimen of Oriental sculpture, 
the whole inverted base of the horn being carved into an elegant leaf of 
Nelumbiura, the Indian Lotus ; surrounding it are smaller Peach, 
Medlar, and other flowers and fruits, and some fantastic Lizards, with 
bunches of Grapes and the Li-tchi fruit in their mouths, are crawling 
over the whole. This was presented to the Society by Lady Smith in 1869: 
Very many of Linnaeus’s m.anuscripts were also on view. Including 
the earliest extant, the “ Hortus Uplandicus,” or list of plants in the 
botanical garden of Upsala and others in its neighbourhood, dating 
from 1730, and containing the first hint of the sexual system. 
The vast collection of letters written to Linnaeus (about 3000) was 
not on exhibition, but the few written by him which the Society pos¬ 
sesses are of much interest, being addressed to G. D. Ehret, F.R.S., a 
German botanical artist of celebrity in the last century, who co¬ 
operated with Linrtfeusin producing the “Hortus Cliffortianus” at Haar¬ 
lem in 1737, and who afterwards lived in London for many years. One 
of the letters (a translation), dated October 19th, 1756, is ^dressed to 
Dr. Patrick Brown, author of the “ History of Jamaica,” the beautiful 
plates of which were by Ehret. It is a very characteristic letter, and 
shows the great naturalist’s enthusiasm and scientific temper so clearly 
that we reproduce a part of it:— 
“ I never coveted any book, I know not by what instinct, with more 
