Societies and Universities to which the Society's Transactions are sent.

(Copies are also sent to the British and Foreign Honorary Fellows of the Society)

TRANSACTIONS

OF THE

BOTANICAL SOCIETY.

SESSION L.

10th December 1885.-Professor DICKSON, President,
in the Chair.

The PRESIDENT briefly reviewed the work of the past year, and congratulated the Society on the state of its finances, notwithstanding the expenditure incurred in connection with Dr Spruce's valuable Monograph on South American Hepaticæ, the publication of which is a just source of satisfaction.

During the summer of 1885 the Camp Committee, by the kind permission of John Bullough, Esq., of Meggernie Castle, explored the upper part of Glenlyon, where they made important collections, which would ere long be laid before the Society. The best thanks of the Fellows were due to Mr Symington Grieve for the energetic way in which he had organised our "new departure" in this direction.

The Council entered on negotiations as to the purchase of the botanical library of the late Mr Anderson-Henry, but withdrew therefrom, a private purchaser having offered to the trustees a larger sum for the library than it was considered proper to ask the Government to advance.

As regarded the ordinary business of the Society, various important communications had been submitted.

The Rev. David Landsborough gave the result of his experiments on the cultivation of Australian and New Zealand plants on the east coast of Arran; and a second communication would be made by him that evening."

TRANS. BOT. SOC. VOL. XVI.

X

The Society had had three valuable papers from Mr John Rattray-1st, "On the Geographical Distribution of Algæ in the Firth of Forth," in which he dealt with the relation of the distribution of different types to different bathymetrical conditions, varying illumination, &c.; 2nd, "On some New Cases of Epiphytism among Algæ;" and 3rd, "Preliminary Note on the Evolution of Oxygen by SeaWeeds."

A short, though important, note was communicated by Professor T. R. Fraser on Strophanthus hispidus, a plant which promises in his hands to yield a most valuable remedy in cardiac affections. And, in this connection, reference was made to the pleasure experienced by the Fellows on receiving a communication, in person, from Mr John Buchanan of Blantyre, Central Africa, to whom the Society, the Botanic Garden, and Professor Fraser himself have been indebted for much valuable material.

A communication was made by Mr William Coldstream on the important subject of the Fodder-Grasses of India.

Mr Scott-Elliot furnished a careful resumé of Haberlandt's views on the physiological functions of plant tissues. Such resumés were of great importance, and it was well to remind the younger members that the presentation of such communications is one of the original objects of the Society, as laid down in its constitution,

During the past year the Society had had to deplore the loss of some well-known and highly-esteemed Fellows, viz., the Earl of Selkirk, Mr W. W. Evans, Mr Alexander Croall, Mr James F. Robinson, Mr James Welsh, Edmond Bossier and Dr W. B. Carpenter. Of these obituary notices would ere long appear; but it was impossible to refrain from special reference to the great loss which had been sustained by the Society and the whole scientific world. in the very unexpected death of Dr W. B. Carpenter, whose accomplishments in almost all the departments of natural science may be said to have been unrivalled.

The President then made some special observations on certain points in the morphology of Frullania and other leafy Jungermannieæ. [These observations appear as a separate paper in the Transactions.]

Obituary Notice of William Benjamin Carpenter, C.B., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. By ANDREW TAYLOR.

WILLIAM BENJAMIN CARPENTER died from the result of an accident, at the age of 72, on November 10, 1885. At the meeting of the British Association in Aberdeen during the previous autumn, some of our older members were struck by the untiring energy he displayed, which, indeed, was almost equal to that manifested during our Society's first year of life, in 1836, when he was a conspicuous contributor of papers.

W. B. Carpenter, fourth child and eldest son of Dr Lant Carpenter, an eminent Unitarian minister, was born at Exeter in 1813. On removing to Bristol, the father added to his pastoral duties the instruction of twelve youths together with his own family, and the world has had practical results of this training. Mary Carpenter, the champion of destitute and criminal children, was the eldest of the family, and soon became the special friend and mentor of the future physiologist. Dr James Martineau, who was a pupil with William Carpenter, when both had ideas of being civil engineers, gratefully speaks of the influence on their budding boyhood of the sedate little girl who looked at you so steadily, and always spoke like a book. The instruction given covered successive courses of geology, natural philosophy, and chemistry, with illustrative specimens, diagrams, and experiments. Mrs Carpenter's instructions in geography, given with very admirable detail, made Martineau, previously only a classicist, write "I never can forget the shame I felt on discovering at Bristol the depths of my ignorance of the natural world and of modern times." At least two other names, besides those just given, have become noted from this home school; I only mention Dr Philip Pearsall Carpenter, B.A., Ph.D., who died at Montreal in 1877. William B. Carpenter began his career of educationalist at twelve, for, like others of the family, he taught while he learned. He thus early began to form that clear literary style so characteristic of his scientific treatises; and he never throughout life laid aside the vocation