6 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



of the Cox family. As the Chief Magistrate of the district — for at 

 this time Captain Cox resided at Clarendon, on the Hawkesbury, 

 between Windsor and Richmond — Governor Macquarie, in 1813, 

 entrusted to him the responsible task of getting a road made across 

 the Blue Mountains to the site now occupied by the town of 

 Bathurst, shortly after Blaxland, Lawson, and Wentworth, and 

 Evans had completed their labours; and which Captain Cox car- 

 ried out very successfully in the face of many difficulties. After 

 completing his medical studies at Edinburgh, Dr. J. C. Cox re- 

 turned to Sydney, and therafter engaged in the practice of his 

 profession. Among the official positions which he filled for some 

 years, were Lecturer in Medicine at the University of Sydney, and 

 Chief Medical Officer to the Australian Mutual Provident Society. 

 He was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Australian Museum 

 in 1865, and for a number of years, and up to the time of his 

 death, he was Chairman of the Board. For a lengthy period, under 

 the old regime, he was President of the Board of Fisheries, and 

 took a great interest in the development of the fishing industry. 

 He was a member of the Philosophical Society of New South 

 Wales, founded in 1856, and contributed a paper "On the Wam- 

 beyan Caves," which was read on 9th July, 1862, and which was 

 published in the Transactions of the Society, issued in 1866. 



We have a special interest in Dr. Cox, because of his active and 

 loyal support of Sir William Macleay in initiating and carrying on 

 the work of both the Entomological Society of New South Wales, 

 and the Linnean Society of New South Wales. He was an Origi- 

 nal Member of both Societies. From its foundation in 1862 to 

 1865, he was Hon. Secretary of the former, and subsequently Hon. 

 Treasurer. His connection with the Society appears to have stimu- 

 lated his interest in entomology, and led him to make a collection ; 

 for the record of one of his exhibits, is of a very small species of 

 Trox, which he had found in a Phalidura in his cabinet. From 

 time to time, at the Meetings, he exhibited collections from various 

 localities, some of them the results of his own collecting. But even 

 at this time he must have been more interested in conchology. Dur- 

 ing the period from 1864-1873, he contributed seventeen concholo- 



