PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 67 
The following Presidential Address was then delivered :— 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 
BY 
J. BANCROFT ESQ., M.D. 
It falls to my lot, gentlemen, as president of this society, to 
deliver an address on subjects of general interest to us as colo- 
nists, and members of the Royal Society of Queensland, and 
I am sorry the duty devolves on one who lays no claim to 
ability as writer or speaker. 
We have recently by the favour of his Excellency Sir A. Mus- 
grave, received permission from Her Majesty the Queen, to use 
the title “Royal Society of Queensland,” and although some of 
you would have felt more content to call yourselves the Natural 
History Society of Queensland, we accept the more honorable 
designation, and hope you will make efforts so to work as to 
deserve the name adopted. 
With regard to the late Queensland Philosophical Society, 
which has been amalgamated with the present society, 
I may state that in the year 1859 the nucleus of this 
Society met in the old hospital that stood on the ground now 
occupied by the Supreme Court. Its most energetic member, 
at that time, and founder was the late Dr. F. J. Barton. The 
chief efforts of the Queensland Philosophical Society were at 
first directed to the furtherance of the study of meteorology, and 
the establishment of a museum. In the earliest records of the 
society are to be found documents relating to the study of rain- 
fall and water supply that are singularly applicable to the wants 
of the present time. Dr. Barton acted as meteorological 
observer to the colony, and died at his post as hospital surgeon, 
and his contributions to the records of the Brisbane Hospital 
may be studied with much profit. I have had occasion to ex- 
amine the first case-books of this institution for the purpose of 
