134 president's address — section d. 



SECTION D. 



BIOLOGY. 



ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT 

 Professor Alfred J. Ev/art, D.Sc, Ph.D., 



Professor of Botany in the University of Melbourne. 



BIOLOGY DURING THE WAR AND AFTER. 



It is perhaps hardly necessary for me to remind you that this 

 is the first meeting of the Australasian Association for a period 

 of 8 years, and that, during that period, momentous changes have 

 taken place all over the world. As an aftermath of the waste 

 entailed by war we are now passing through a time of economic 

 stringency, and are suffering from a phase of general unrest in 

 our social system. In spite, however, of the immediate evils and 

 the prospective troubles which a great war causes or leaves in 

 its train, its after-effects are not wholly and solely evil ones. The 

 very unrest of which we complain is a sign of awakening, and in 

 so far as this awakening results in an increased ajopreciation of 

 the value of science and of scientific M'ork, in so far as it indicartes 

 a desire for education and general betterment, and in so far 

 as it produces national striving and individual energy, its results 

 must be good, and these results will remain when the unrest has 

 passed away. 



T propose in this address to take a brief review of the work 

 that has been done in Zoology and Botany in Australia during 

 the last seven years, and then to say a few words about future 

 possibilities, particularly in regard to the relations of Government 



