BY ALEX. MORTON. 117 



steam vessels on the Eivers Derwent and Tamar, it was a 

 great considei'ation to obtain coal at a cheaper rate than it 

 could be imported from Newcastle, England. 



The Bridgewater Causeway and Bridge were the subject 

 of an article by the Director of Public Works, Mr. W. P. 

 Kay. The work of making the Causeway occupied nine 

 years, at an average expenditure of =£4,500 per annum, and 

 the cost of the bridge was ^£7,580. The solid contents of 

 the causeway filled into the river was computed at 560,000 

 cubic yards, and must have cost about Is. 5^d. per cubic yard. 

 The cost of convict labour does not seem to have been less 

 than that of free, if the money spent on the Causeway may 

 be taken as a criterion. We, in these more prosaic times, 

 when the more important discoveries in botany and natural 

 history have all been made, can hardly realise the jjreat 

 interest of those early meetings, when so much was new and 

 sometimes with no parallel in the old. 



Various kinds of manna w^ere found on many of the trees 

 in the new world, and one was discovered by Mr. Robert Kay 

 which differed from all known kinds, and was considered to 

 be an exudation from the mallee (Eucalyptus Dumosa). The 

 aborigines in the North-west of Australia, where this manna 

 was found, believed that Bhami, their hero-god, who had 

 been taken by the spirits to the land of fadeless flowers, had 

 sent this manna as a substitute for the honey that, owing to 

 the drought and the absence of flowers, had for some seasons 

 failed them. 



Sir William Denison, whose practical engineering skill was 

 of the greatest use to the colonists during his governorship, 

 contributed among many others, an interesting paper on the 

 construction of dams, with a view to irrigation. It is a little 

 remarkable, when we remember how often the necessity of 

 irrigation was pressed on the attention of the people in those 

 early days, that no more impression was apparently made on 

 the minds of those to whom such a system would have meant 

 riches. We have abundant proof that Tasmania was not, on 

 the whole, unprogressive at this time, but the people were 

 slow to realise that science in agriculture is of the first im- 

 portance. 



The remarks of Dr. Agnew on the snakes of Tasmania, 

 mentioned in connection with the Tasmanian Society, had 

 stirred the observing power of several others, and a number 

 of experiments were made on the relative virulence of various 

 species of snakes, the results of which were communicated to 

 the Royal Society by Major Cotton. 



On 18th September, 1848, Dr. Nixon, Bishop of Tasmania, 

 was elected a Fellow, and the first contribution I notice from 



