PROCEEDINGS—PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE, dxxxili 
and surgical practice. Perhaps, however, the direction in which 
modern science has made itself most felt is not so much the cure as 
the prevention of disease. Here again the influence of Bacteriology 
is strongly marked as a leading factor in our improved methods of 
hygiene and sanitation. 
From what has been said, it will be evident that the last sixty 
years form an altogether unique period in the history of science. In 
the time of the ancients, wonderful progress had been made in 
certain directions, but for the first sixteen centuries of the Christian 
era men were too much taken up with the struggle of race, and too 
much trammelled by the authority of the church and the schools, to 
think out for themselves much that was new. The seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries witnessed a complete awakening from this state 
of intellectual lethargy. During these two hundred years, the ground 
was being prepared for further advance, so that at the beginning of 
the present era men were ready to go forward on the road of fresh 
conquest and discovery. What that road has revealed at its different 
turnings, I have endeavoured, in a very imperfect and fragmentary 
manner, to show you. 
The culture of the present era differs from that of the eras which 
preceded it in its emancipation from the old prejudices of the school¬ 
men, in its many-sidedness, and in its novel practical outcomes. In 
the last-mentioned phase, it is largely indebted to improvement in the 
mechanical means and methods of investigation, by which we are 
now enabled to examine, weigh, and measure both the infinitely great 
and the infinitely little. 
Perhaps it will be appropriate if I conclude with a reference to 
the position which societies such as ours occupy in this new scientific 
culture. Sixty years ago such societies were almost unknown. The 
Report of the British Association for 1897 contains a list of sixty-nine 
local societies which are affiliated with it, and the dates when they 
were founded. Of these, only ten were in existence when the Queen 
came to the Throne, and most of these ten were Philosophical 
Societies. The only purely Natural History Society in the list which 
is older than the reign is the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Field Club. 
That these local societies have rendered important services to science, 
in the accumulation of facts in all departments of scientific enquiry, 
is now admitted on every hand. Coming more immediately to the 
record of our own Society, it is gratifying to reflect that at least four 
names which have been on our roll have made their mark in the history 
of contemporary science by reason of original research, namely, Croll, 
White, Geikie, and Geddes. 
The following paper was read :— 
“The Geological Influence in the Distribution of the Alpine 
Plants of Perthshire.” By P, Macnair, Glasgow. In the absence of 
Mr. Macnair, the paper was communicated by Mr. Barclay. (See 
Trans ., Vol. II., page 240.) 
Q 
