33 6 Isaac Bay ley Balfour. 
Soon after his return from this expedition he went to Germany, and it 
was at Strassburg that he came under the influence of de Bary, for whom he * 
always entertained a great esteem. In 1879 he was appointed to the 
Regius Professorship of Botany in the University of Glasgow, and in 
the following year he visited the island of Socotra. 'The results of this 
expedition proved to be of great scientific value, and were published about 
eight years later by the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Although his tenure 
of the Glasgow Chair was a brief one (about five years) it was sufficient to 
give proof of his organizing capacity. His successor, Professor Bower, 
in an admirable tribute to his memory, published in ‘ The Glasgow Herald * 
(December 5, 1922), bearing witness to his constructive powers, draws a com¬ 
parison between the conditions as Balfour found them and as he left them, and 
he adds : ‘ When I succeeded him in 1885 I found the machinery in working 
order, and it only needed to be kept running.’ In 1 884 he resigned the 
Glasgow Chair on being elected to the Sherardian Professorship at Oxford, 
a post which carried with it a Fellowship at Magdalen College. It was 
whilst he was at Oxford that the idea of founding the periodical which has 
taken shape as the c Annals of Botany * was conceived. He threw himself 
into the project with all his heart, and it was very largely to his inspiring 
tenacity of purpose, coupled with his sagacity in steering the enterprise 
through the many dangers that threatened it during its pre-natal incubation 
period, that success was finally assured. Fortunately much of the corre¬ 
spondence has been preserved, and this material (which it is hoped may 
some day find an appropriate home in the Fibrary of the Oxford Botanic 
Garden) not only serves to show just how this journal came into being, but 
it also sheds interesting sidelights on the condition of botany in this 
country at that time. A feeling had arisen, and was growing stronger 
amongst the younger men of high standing, that all was not well with 
botany in England. Chief amongst the protagonists were Balfour, 
Thiselton-Dyer, and Vines. They were fully aware of the great advances 
that were being made on the Continent, and had realized that changes were 
coming over the science which were destined profoundly to affect and 
extend its relations to other branches of knowledge. It was perhaps 
natural that the older men should view the new movement with some 
apprehension, but it is a remarkable fact that two of the leaders of the 
forward movement were themselves distinguished systematists. Against 
opposition, and in the face of well-meant discouragement, the view was 
maintained that a new journal was wanted to meet the new' conditions, and 
that when started it would justify its inception by the increased output 
of research which would follow on new facilities for publication of the 
results. How well that prescience has been justified the pages of the 
‘ Annals of Botany ’ have abundantly proved. It is not a little interesting to 
find that even so experienced and far-seeing a man as Sir Joseph Hooker, 
