li PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
number seven as the perfect number of the old mystics. 
The strange nebula round the last new star is definitely shown 
to be the play of light travelling across misty space. 
ZOOLOGY. 
The Arab steed is proved not to be of Arabian but of 
North African descent, and the types of domestic horses are 
shown to be of several sources, mostly local in Europe. 
Dr. B. A. Brusky, of Toronto, has determined to his own 
satisfaction, that the imtroduction of marsupials into Aus- 
tralia took place not earlier than the Tertiary period, either 
by way of Malaya and New Guinea, or by the hypothetic 
Antarctic land. He admits a difficulty in the case of carnivore 
marsupials. His conclusion is based on geological evidence— 
marsupial remains are found in Europe and America in older 
deposits than in Australia, but surely, till Australian deposits 
have been thoroughly searched, it would seem plausible that 
Australia was the centre from which the few outlying marsu- 
pials known elsewhere, were disseminated. 
ARCHAEOLOGY. 
It has been reported that the inscriptions of the early 
Empires of Central America are entirely chronological, and 
not historical, which is disappointing, if true. 
Recent researches seem to confirm the idea, long in the 
air, that the most ancient civilisation known—that of Baby- 
lonia, was brought in a rough state from the north east, 
from that little known region of the Hindoo Koosh, long since 
called the “ officina gentium,” the original of nations. 
GEOLOGY. 
In practical science the demonstration of the possibility 
of detecting the presence of ore bodies by electro magnetic 
waves, has been proved. Wherever an interruption of an 
electric current takes place a sound is produced, which can 
be picked up by the telephone and this principle is utilised in 
the method adopted, and any large body of ore can be located 
by the character of the sound, but it is not by this means 
possible to determine such minute disturbances as to show 
where payable gold exists in quartz reefs. For massive 
minerals, such as iron and lead, it is of great value. 
Mr. Ball, of the Geological Survey, has confirmed the 
existence,of true rubies in Queensland. As no single stone of 
