858 president's address. 



returns all that it has received, with increase untold. Our 

 progress depends essentially upon the prosperity of the people, 

 and that prosperity cannot but deri^^e continued expansion and 

 progressive enrichment from the advance of Science in 

 Australia. 



Now the first Monthly Meeting of the Society was held Monday 

 January 25, 1875, under the Presidency of Mr. Macleay, who at 

 the commencement of Autumn (May 18) set sail in the Chevert 

 for New Guinea. On the return of that Expedition, Mr. Macleay 

 resumed his chair at the next meeting, November 25, and read a 

 paper containing a general account of his doings and collections 

 On the voyage and in New Guinea. It may reasonably be said 

 that this date marks the first epoch in our history. The quantity 

 of new and interesting material then thrown down, at the feet and 

 before the eyes of the Society, had, as might have been expected, 

 a wonderfully quickening effect upon its previously rather sluggish 

 energies ; and so the voyage of the Chevert became the primary 

 and material cause of its subsequent health and vitality. For at 

 this very Meeting the President, while sketching out the distribution 

 of his collections for the purpose of scientific examination, found 

 himself compelled to admit "that he could not think of any one 

 who was likely to do justice to the collections of the Crustacea, 

 echinodermata, annelida, polyzoa, polypifera, and other still 

 lower forms of animal life." Such a sorrowful confession is not, 

 we trust, likely to be again provoked. Many Members of the 

 Society have shown themselves well qualified to deal with these 

 subjects, and do deal with them accordingly. But indeed it was 

 impossible to attempt so decided an advance into a strange country 

 without the auxiliary force of books, in which we might find the 

 observations of previous investigators recorded, their errors 

 corrected, and their real discoveries confirmed. This assistance 

 was for a long time out of the reach of Australian Naturalists, and 

 it therefore became a habitual practice to refer every new 

 object to persons resident in older countries, who, besides their 

 own knowledge, had at hand the science of the whole world 

 recorded in an accessible and convenient form. Now, however, 



