PKOCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 187 



makers. Tlieir conquests arc literally but of yesterday and of to- 

 day. A generation ago microscopes were a rarity in America. In 

 tlie year 1840, when the United States' exploring expedition to the 

 South Seas, under Commander Wilkes, was fitting out, it was thought 

 necessary to have a microscope. The various makers of scientific 

 and philosophic instruments were applied to, but none of them 

 could furnish the expedition with the thing desii'ed. In this dilemma 

 a private individual was appealed to, and an instrument thus finally 

 obtained, in the shape of an inferior French microscope. How, then, 

 did the present flourishing state of affairs come about ? Simply by 

 the genius of a self-taught man. He was a backwoodsman, and had 

 pored over an old cyclopedia, and turned the optical knowledge 

 contained therein, as far as in him lay, to sound practical account. 

 At the age of twelve years he made his first lens. One day he 

 happened to be shown a microscope constructed by Chevalier, of 

 Paris, and the thought struck him that he would try to make a 

 similar instrument. He succeeded, and his glasses were able to 

 resolve a test which similar objectives of the first English oj)ticians 

 had hitherto failed to define. His name was Charles Spencer. And now 

 his pupil Tolles, and Wales, a pupil of Smith and Beck, with Gronow, 

 Zentmayer, and others, form a galaxy of American mathematical 

 instrument talent that appears from recent accounts to be holding its 

 own against the whole of the Old World. Is there not here a ground 

 for the hope I exjn-essed a little while ago ? Surely after this example 

 of Spencer, the young backwoodsman, many here present may live to 

 see the day when a finished microscope shall be presented to their 

 delighted gaze by the hands of an Australian townsman, at least, if 

 not by an Australian bushman. 



Eeverting to the different classes of colonists from whom we hope 

 to elect intelligent associates in aid of our microscopical inquiries, I 

 wish to mention, in explanation of my suggestion that agriculturists 

 should unite with us in securing natural-history objects, that I have 

 not overlooked the fact of a Government Department of Agriculture 

 having been formed recently under a Minister of the Crown. In the 

 course of time, when the scope and functions of that department shall 

 have assumed a definite limit, its sphere of operation will no doubt 

 comprise the labour's of a Government microscopist. No such officer 

 has, however, yet been appointed ; and in the meanwhile specimens of 

 material, whether forwarded to us direct by agriculturists or through 

 the Minister of Agricultiu'e, might here undergo the microscopic 

 investigation required. Any reasonable expense incurred in such re- 

 searches woiild, I understand, be cheerfully borne by the Government. 

 I am authorized to say this by the hon. the Minister of Agriculture, 

 Mr. Casey, and the result of these researches, with accurate illustrative 

 drawings, would doubtless find full publicity in any publications of 

 the department, such as its annual report. The Secretary of Agricul- 

 ture, Mr. Wallis, has handed me for presentation to you this evening 

 a coloured drawing of a new and very destructive vegetable parasite, 

 with some specimens of the plant itself, which has appeared recently 

 among the rye-grass in the neighbourhood of Ballarat. Baron von 



VOL. XI. P 



