2 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



ment to two men. One has ceased to be a Member of this Society 

 and to continue his work in AustraHa, but, in a larger sphere, he 

 still directs the labours and lends his kindly hand to encourage 

 the early efforts to learn of Nature of those of another land. I 

 refer to Charles James Martin. The other lives among us and 

 sets us the example of an earnest student of the animals, plants, 

 and rocks ai'ound us. 1 pa}^ my homage to Charles Hedley. 



You will pardon me if I spend a few minutes in pointing out 

 what I owe to my chief teachers. The Australians are said to 

 lack reverence and gratitude. Perhaps their critics are, some- 

 times, astray. It is rather more than twenty-one years since I 

 saw for the first time C. J. Martin. I was a student of medicine 

 at the Medical School in Melbourne, and had reached my third 

 year. We students had heard, towards the end of our second 

 year, that the venerable Professor of Physiology, Dr. Halford, 

 had been granted leave of absence, and that a lecturer had been 

 appointed in his place. Early in the next year, I went, in the 

 compan}^ of a fellow student, to find out if we could not start our 

 year's reading before lectures commenced. The Long Vacation 

 seemed too lengthy an holiday. We were young in many ways. 

 We thought that in books lay the knowledge of natural pheno- 

 mena. We had not learnt that our work in the laboratory was 

 anything more than an attempt to assist our memories by visual- 

 ising what we committed to our minds. I recollect that we 

 went to the Old Medical School through the Grecian porch. We 

 passed through the bare hall with its tablet in commemoration 

 of Professor Kirkland, and into the asphalted court. On the 

 right was the Department of Physiology. It consisted of a theatre 

 into which opened the Professor's library and a small ante-room. 

 Beyond stretched a commodious laboratory with benches equipped 

 for chemical work, with gas, with water, and with shelves 

 for bottles. A preparation-room in which the Professor's assist- 

 ant made ready the microscopical sections and chemical solutions 

 with which we worked, and two empty rooms completed the suite 

 of rooms. As we walked to the door, I little thought that I was 

 to spend the greater part of five out of the next six years within 

 those walls. In answer to our knock, there appeared a tall, fair 



