president's address. 1 3 



their Society had before it now a long career of untroubled use 

 fulness. They had secured a home, a well-furnished library, a 

 well-fitted laboratory, and, above all, a quiet and comfortable 

 room for their meetings. To this he might add that the burden 

 of generally directing the business of the Society, and of editing 

 its publications, which, under the control of the Council, had, for 

 some years past, chiefly fallen upon him, would, he hoped, hence- 

 forth be borne upon worthier shoulders. Mr. J. .1. Fletcher, 

 M.A , of Sydney University, and B.Sc, of London, was about to 

 undertake the duties of Secretary and Director of the Institution, 

 and it was worthy of note that he was one of the first two Aus- 

 tralians who had taken a science degree. 



The President of the Linnean Society (Professor W. .J. 

 Stephens, M.A.) then rose, and addressing their host, said that, in 

 the brief history of the operations of the Linnean Society of New 

 South Wales which he had just laid before its members, and in his 

 notice of the inconveniences and even disaster under which its 

 work had been hitherto maintained, he observed a serious omis- 

 sion of important facts. It was quite true that the Society was 

 in the first instance confined to a very indifferent lodging, thai 

 their affairs were improved by the permission of the trustees of 

 the Free Public Library to occupy for the purposes of their meet- 

 ings a room in that establishment, and that their possession of 

 excellent quarters in the Garden Palace was only terminated in 

 a fatal conflagration. Their host had forgotten, however, to state 

 that since that misfortune he had lodged the Society at his own 

 expense, providing for its use in the first place an office in 

 Hunter-street, and, secondly, a commodious house in Phillip- 

 street, in which they had been for two years exceedingly comfort- 

 able, and which he ceased to place at their disposal only because 

 he hail now completed the building of this spacious and admirably 

 planned Palace of Science which Mr. Macleay had that day pre- 

 sented to them. He had also neglected to inform them of the 

 fact that he had himself supplied the salaries of the paid officers 

 of the Society, that he had defrayed by far the greater portion 

 of the cost of the Society's publications, anil that he had pur- 



