president's address. 1109 



• XI. — -The shell membrane has not been represented in its early- 

 stages, except by Bariy. The " villous chorion " (aon-cellular, 

 Bischoff) is probably partly derived from a true shell membrane. 



Mr. Caldwell has not, so far as I am aware, as yet made public 

 the results of his inquiries into the Embryology of Ceratodtis. 



Antarctic Exploration. 



The question of Antarctic exploration has been well agitated 

 both in the Northern Hemisphere and in these southern latitudes. 

 The following papers will repay perusal : — 



Proc. Inst. N.Z. XIX.— C. Traill (p. 470). 



Roy. Soc. Vict. XXIII.— G. S. Griffiths (p. 264). 



lb. Progress Kept, of Ant. Expl. Com. (p. 275). 



Roy. Soc. Tasm. — Chas. P. Sprent, Deputy Surveyor-General 

 (p. 141.) 



New South Wales, it may be surmised or hinted in an apolo- 

 getic tone, is so taken up with her century's achievements, that 

 she has for the present ceased to look forward into the future. 

 We have certainly displayed a manifest lack of interest in an 

 enterprise of such importance as this, a want of energy not often 

 chargeable against a colony, which " ab exiguis profecta initiis, 

 eo creverit ut jam magnitudine laboret sua ;" for she has occu- 

 pied the whole of Australia with the settlements of her daughters 

 or her nieces, and has even been credited with an affectation of 

 assuming for her own greater glorification the surname of the 

 Continent. 



In the waste of public funds, which no Ministry seems able to con- 

 trol and which I do not refrain from stigmatizing as the greatest 

 danger to the liberty and welfare of New South Wales, it is deplor- 

 able that no outlay should be even proposed for an object so great 

 as that of Antarctic Exploration. One fiftieth part of the money 

 wasted during the last year on such plausible but delusive pur- 

 poses as rabbit extirpation, relief of the unemployed, and Centennial 



