president's address. 679 



each and all for the kind and considerate feeling expressed for 

 the great loss we have sustained. The President and Council of 

 the Eoyal Society of New South Wales at once most liberally 

 and thoughtfully placed at our disposal ample accommodation for 

 the holding of our meetings, and for carrying on otherwise the 

 business of the Society, until suitable arrangements could be 

 made by us ; and the neighbouring Societies of Victoria, South 

 Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand, have also greatly added 

 to our obligations by their ready sympathy and earnest proposals 

 of assistance. 



However much we may lament (and justly so) our own 

 misfortunes, we cannot omit on so sad an occasion to express our 

 deep and heartfelt sorrow for the far greater calamity which the 

 the country at large has suffered by this dire conflagration. As 

 these losses have been ably detailed in the journals of our city, 

 it is quite sufficient for me on this occasion, and as a matter of 

 record, to give an epitome of the principal items for the most 

 part taken from the columns of the Sydney Morning Herald of 

 the 23rd September, the day after the fire. 



The Technological Museum, the numerous and excellent ex- 

 hibits of which had been collected and arranged by Mr. Alfred 

 Boberts, F.E.C.S.E., Professor Liversidge of the Sydney 

 University, and Mr. Robert Hunt, Deputy Master of the Mint, 

 the committee appointed for that purpose by the Trustees of the 

 Australian Museum, was on the eve of being thrown open for 

 the inspection of the public, but is now quite destroyed. The 

 destruction of so valuable a display of select and well arranged 

 technological specimens, the work of many years of persevering 

 industry and devotion to the subject by these gentlemen, must 

 necessarily prove disastrous to the community at large, and 

 especially so to the student, when considered in an educational 

 point of view. Let us hope that these gentlemen will not be 

 disheartened by this failure, and that they will be liberally 



