272 
London  Botanic  Gardens. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1906. 
had  held  the  post  of  Botanical  Collector  to  the  Horticultural  Society 
of  London.  In  that  capacity  he  had  just  returned  to  England  from 
China,  and  during  his  three  years'  exploration  of  the  latter  country 
he  had  enriched  the  Horticultural  Society's  gardens  at  Chiswick 
with  a  large  number  of  valuable  plants.  "  Wardian  Cases  "  were 
used  by  Fortune  for  transporting  to  England  the  living  plants  which 
he  had  collected  in  China,  and  to  this  application  of  Ward's  dis- 
covery the  great  success  of  Fortune's  mission  was  largely  due. 
Some  of  the  services  which  Nathaniel  Bagshaw  Ward,  F.R.S., 
rendered  to  the  Society  of  Apothecaries  have  already  been  men- 
tioned in  the  preceding  pages.  We  have  seen,  for  instance,  that  he 
held  the  post  of  Examiner  for  Prizes  in  Botany  from  1836  to  1854, 
and  that  he  was  the  prime  mover  in  the  renewal  of  activities  at  the 
Chelsea  Garden  in  1863.  But  Ward's  scientific  and  administrative 
work  was  not  limited  to  this,  for  he  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the 
Royal  Microscopical  Society,  established  in  1840,  and  in  1854  he 
became  Master  of  the  Society  of  Apothecaries.  During  his  year  of 
office  as  Master  he  gave  "  on  a  very  large  scale  "  at  the  Apothe- 
caries' Hall  "  two  microscopical  soirees,  which  have  never  been  sur- 
passed either  there  or  elsewhere."  His  name,  moreover,  will  always 
be  associated  with  the  discovery  of  the  fact  that  plants  which  would 
otherwise  perish  in  a  smoky  atmosphere,  such  as  that  of  London, 
could  be  made  to  thrive  if  placed  in  "  closely-glazed  cases."  This 
discovery  was  first  made  known  to  the  world  in  a  letter  to  Sir 
William  Hooker  which  appeared  in  the  "  Companion  to  the  Botanical 
Magazine"  for  May,  1836,  and  details  of  the  cases  and  their  various 
applications  were  published  in  1842  in  a  little  work  of  95  pages 
entitled  "  On  the  Growth  of  Plants  in  Closely  Glazed  Cases :  by 
N.  B.  Ward,  F.L.S."  The  fourth  chapter  of  the  work  "  on  the  con- 
veyance of  plants  and  seeds  on  ship-board  "  is  the  one  of  most 
interest  to  us,  as  Ward  here  gives  an  account  of  several  experiments 
in  which  the  transport  of  living  plants  had  been  successfully  accom- 
plished by  the  use  of  the  cases  he  had  invented.  The  first  of  these 
shipments  was  made  "  in  the  beginning  of  June,  1833,"  when  two 
cases  filled  with  "  ferns,  grasses,  etc.,"  were  sent  to  Sydney,  N.S.W., 
in  the  charge  of  Capt.  Charles  Mallard,  R.  N.,  with  the  following 
result  :— 
"Sydney,  January  18,  1834. 
"  Sir  : — I  have  the  happiness  to  inform  you  that  the  plants  contained  in  the 
wo  glazed  cases  entrusted  to  my  care,  were  landed  here  at  the  Botanical  Gar- 
