OF THE SOCIETY. 147 



1913. 



ing the £400 a year granted to the Royal Society). It was 

 natural that the older Society, with no resources (unless 

 indeed, it still received the rents of Ancanthe), should teel 

 that it deserved some help when another Society which 

 did little scientific work received a considerable grant. Mr. 

 Latrobe, to whom the application was made, was disin- 

 clined to help two societies, but willing to make a grant to 

 a combined Society, and he made efforts to bring the two 

 societies together. (55) It was probably as a result of his 

 intervention that a special meeting of the Council was 

 held on 29th January, 1847, for "the consideration of a 

 "proposition for uniting the Royal Society and the Tas- 

 "manian Society." The minutes of the meeting record 

 that:— "After maturely deliberating on the question, the 

 '^ Secretary was instructed to communicate with the Secre- 

 ''tary of the Tasmanian Society, with the view of ascertam- 

 "ino- the distinct grounds en which such union should take 

 ''eff'ect, the Council being unanimously of opinion that 

 "such union is most desirable, in itself." 



The minutes of the next meeting of the Council that a 

 meeting of the Tasmanian Society held at Launceston on 

 24th February, 1847, had negatived the proposal of a 



union, 



The Tasmanian Journal contains the minutes of vari- 

 ous meetings of the Tasmanian Society in 1847 and 1848, 

 the last on 10th May, 1848 (in the number for July, 

 1848). The last number (January, 1849) does not mention 

 any meetings. (56). 



III. THE SOCIETY FROM 1848 TO 1863. 

 The Expansion of the Society, 1848. 



Sir William Thomas Denison, a captain of the Royal 

 Engineers, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, 

 assumed the governorship of Tasmania early in 1847. He 

 will long be remembered in Tasmania for the many public 

 works he carried out, and for his many projects for the 

 advancement of Tasmania. He seems to have interested 

 himself at once in the Society, and to him must be attn. 

 buted its expansion in 1848. 



No materials are available for an account in detail of 

 Sir William Denison's intervention. He refers to its 

 result in a letter to Admiral Beaufort, 5th February, 



(55) See his minute in C.S.O., C.B., vol, 225. No. 795, 



(56) For further references to the Tasmanian Society, see p. 150. 



