president's address. 3 



still suiFering inconvenience from a wound. Another Member, 

 Mr. C. O. Hamblin, B.Sc, left during the year for the front, and 

 carries with him our good wishes. Mr. L. M. Harrison, B.8c., 

 some time ago suspended his studies at Cambridge, in order to 

 join the British forces in Mesopotamia, as entomologist. May 

 we have the pleasure of welcoming them all back in due time I 



The 7th of December, 1916, was the twenty-fifth anniversary 

 of the death of Sir William Maeleay, who for the Members of 

 this Society, should never be immbered with the "unremem- 

 bered or forgotten dead." Twenty-five years have brought about 

 considerable changes in the personnel of the Society, so that the 

 number of those to whom Sir William was personally known has 

 gradually diminished. As one of this minority, and also as this 

 is our first Meeting since the date mentioned, I am glad of the 

 opportunity of calling to remembrance the Society's indebted- 

 ness to the large-hearted, far-seeing man who made this Society 

 possible in its present developed form. The Society of to-day, 

 as compared with the Society at the time of its foundation in 

 October, 1874, affords a very fair indication of the progressive 

 development of the branches of Science, in which it is particu- 

 larly interested, in the interval, in this State. Forty-two years 

 ago, the University of Sydney was without a Medical School, 

 and consequently there was no provision for the teaching of 

 biology. The Australian Museum had no scientific staff' other 

 than the Curator. The Geological Survey Branch of the Depart- 

 ment of Mines was the only Government Institution in Sydney 

 with a scientific staff. The Department of Agriculture and the 

 Technological Museum had not been established. The forerunner 

 of the Department of Public Health was without a laboratory or 

 scientific stafi'. Under scientific conditions of so rudimentary a 

 character as that outlined, this Society was inaugurated, by men 

 with faith in the future. The number of the original Members 

 who were actively interested in Natural History was very small, 

 but they were in earnest, and they were backed up by a very 

 creditable number of sympathetic supporters desirous of seeing 

 an advance in the status of Natural Science in New South Wales. 



