PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 5 



versity of Tasmania, and of its forerunner, Christ's College. His 

 official duties provided opportunities for visiting all the settled 

 parts of Tasmania, and led to the acquisition of a considerable 

 knowledge of the geographical and geological features of the 

 country, branches of knowledge in which his interest was of long- 

 standing, and maintained to the last. Mr. Stephens joined this 

 Society in 1904 ; and, in 1908, he contributed an important 

 paper entitled " Notes on the Geology of the North- West Coast 

 of Tasmania, from the River Tamar to Circular Head," which 

 appeared in the Proceedings for the year mentioned. Other 

 papers are to be found in the Papers and Proceedings of the 

 Royal Society of Tasmania, or in the Report of the Meeting of 

 the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science 

 held in Hobart in 1 902. 



Dr. Albert Giinther was elected an Honorary Member of the 

 Society in 1883, in appreciation of his valuable contributions to 

 a knowledge of Australian Fishes, Amphibia, and Reptilia. His 

 paper on Ceratodus, in the Philosophical Transactions of the 

 Royal Society for 1871, is well known to students. His lengthy 

 and honourable association with the British Museum, as Keeper 

 of the Zoological Department, terminated on his retirement in 

 1 895. He was the author of a monumental series of British 

 Museum Catalogues, Monographs, and papers contributed to the 

 Transactions of numerous Scientific Societies; also the founder 

 and first editor of the Zoological Record. His services to science, 

 both in connection with the British Museum, and in other ways, 

 have been of the highest order; and his death in London, on 

 February 1st, in his eighty-fourth year, closed a distinguished 

 and fruitful career. 



Dr. Greig-Smith, Macleay Bacteriologist to the Society, has 

 continued his investigations into the reason for the beneficial 

 action of heat and of the volatile disinfectants, such as chloroform 

 and toluene, upon soils. It has been claimed by the Rothamsted 

 investigators, that the enhanced fertility, that follows the treat. 

 ment, is due to the destruction of the phagocytic protozoa. If 

 this were so, it would be immaterial whether the one method 

 were employed or the other, and in the case of a double treatment 



