126 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



forest seemed to have died and fallen, and a young forest was 

 springing up tlirongli it. This commenced rather abruptlj^, 

 and extended for miles, when it ceased abruptly also. He 

 would be glad to know if Mr. Howitt could give any 

 explanation of such a [)henomenon occurring in an utterly 

 uninhabited district, where probably human foot had not 

 trodden more than once or twice in the history of the 

 country. Mr. Howitt's paper was a most valuable and 

 interesting one. 



Baron von Mueller concurred in the commendatory 

 terms in which the President had spoken of this paper, 

 which represented the result of observations which must 

 have extended over a long series of years. Indeed, Mr. 

 Hewitt's observations had been so thorough that nothing- 

 seemed to have escaped him, not even the smallest forms of 

 vegetable life. The Eucalyptus amygdalina, referred to by 

 Mr. Howitt, had been noticed by the scientist who accom- 

 panied La Perouse on his first expedition. He was very 

 much beholden to Mr. Howitt for the honor he had conferred 

 upon him, of naming the new species of eucalypt he had 

 discovered, after him. This was a eucalyj^t of great 

 commercial value, and that it should bear his name was an 

 honor of which he felt proud. Forty years ago he had 

 commenced to study the eucalypts in the Botanical Gardens, 

 and had been very much struck with the resemblance of the 

 odour of the oil to that produced by a certain tree, having 

 great medicinal properties, in India. From tliat time the 

 study of the eucalypts had become very interesting to him, 

 Mr. Bosisto had done great good in drawing attention to the 

 eucal3q:)tus oil question, and rendering it a great industry 

 here. Mr. Howitt's paper was one of the most sterling con- 

 tributions to the recoixls of the Society, and his discovery, 

 which had been brought out at that meeting, of a new and 

 valuable timber, was one of very great importance. His 

 endeavour to bring geographical knowledge to bear on the 

 distribution of the trees was a work in an entirely new 

 direction, and he had, in reality, for the first time by his 

 tables and diagr-ams, succeeded in showing in a geographical 

 manner the distribution of the trees, which could only be 

 done after a great many observations, extending over a long 

 series of years. Indeed, the work of the next centur}"^ would 

 be to carefully map out the distribution of the original vege- 

 tation in the various ])arts of the globe. In reality, this work 

 had only just been commenced in Europe, and Mr. Howitt 



