650 Proceedings. 



no doubt be taken up by members during the year. Some parts of the 

 address would be considered unorthodox, but there was evidence that 

 changes would take place in the evolution theory. The address touched 

 on many questions of great use and interest. 



Vote carried. 



General Schaw returned thanks, and said he was quite prepared to 

 have the address criticized, and he hoped it would be the means of our 

 gaining additional knowledge on some important subjects. 



Sir James Hector exhibited a snake found at the wharf 

 here in some bananas from Fiji. There were only two kinds 

 in that comitry, and both were harmless. It is exceptional to 

 find venomous snakes in the Pacific Islands. He also exhibited 

 a water snake found in the North of New Zealand. The intro- 

 duction of snakes should be guarded against, as it would be 

 awkw^ard if they came from New Guinea or Queensland, where 

 they are poisonous. 



Mr. Kirk said that snakes no doubt did migrate to New Zealand, bufc 

 they died out. They often reached even England in fruit. There is also 

 a sea snake that visits us from Torres Straits. 



General Schaw said it was interesting to know that snakes could 

 make such long journeys through the sea. 



Mr. G. Tanner would like to know if other dangerous visitors, such 

 as centipedes, are likely to arrive in the same way. 



Sir J. Hector explained that they could only come from Queensland 

 or New Guinea, and he had not heard of any arriving. Live plants 

 introduced here should be carefully searched for such things. In con- 

 nection with this he might mention that a form of iris {Uomaria) had 

 been introduced to Victoria from the Islands that is very injurious to 

 cattle and sheep. 



Second Meeting : 28th June, 1893. 



General Schaw, President, in the Chair. 



Paper. — "On the Disposal of Sewage by Application to 

 the Soil (Sew^age Farming)," by Dr. Chappie. {Transactions, 

 p. 517.) 



Sir James Hector said this was an opportune and valuable paper, 

 but embraced so many subjects on which special expert knowledge was 

 required that it was difficult on short notice to discuss it. For the suc- 

 cess of a sewage farm it was generally admitted that a separate system, 

 which prevents the admixture of •storm-water with the sewage, was 

 absolutely necessary, and he understood the city, in adopting the Shone 

 system, was providing for this. The author had clearly explained the 

 purifying agency of the oxidizing Bacteria. If these did not have full 

 play, then this class of microscopic fungi, that throve in the absence of 

 air, and to wliich group most germs of disease belong, would multiply ; 

 he instanced the case of Pasteur's sheep that died of anthrax, and, though 

 buried Gft. deep, yet spread the disease in the following year to a flock 

 depasturing in the vicinity. Burying putrefactive matter in still clay 

 soil was the very opposite of sewage-farming ; but the latter must bo 

 well managed to be able to deal etiectually not only with the ordinary 

 healthy sewage of the city, but also with it under conditions of epidemic 



