PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS IN SECTION B. 
CHEMISTRY AND MINERALOGY. 
By PROFESSOR E. H. RENNIE, M.A., D.Sc. 
University of Adelaide. 
In assuming the presidency of Section B of the Australasian 
Association for the Advancement of Science, it is my first duty 
to thank those who have done me the honour to elect me to the 
office, and to say that it will be my earnest desire to deserve the 
distinction by doing all in my power to forward the interests of 
the sciences which this section represents. While thoroughly 
appreciating the honour conferred upon me, I feel also a grave 
sense of responsibility—a responsibility to say something which 
may help to further the interests not only of this section, but 
also of the Association, and, therefore, of Australasia. 
The benefits to be derived from a meeting of this kind are 
doubtless, in a large measure, those which arise from conversation 
and social intercourse between men of like pursuits, and, in fact, 
we are often twitted with the preponderance of the social 
element. It will, however, be a great pity if those portions 
of che proceedings devoted to pleasure and relaxation are allowed 
to entirely eclipse the scientific objects of the gathering—if, in 
fact, by means of papers and discussions, we do not get some 
stimulus to more earnest work in the future. 
In common with many others occupying somewhat similar 
positions, I have felt considerable difficulty in choosing a subject 
on which to address you. It has been customary in past years 
in the British Association for sectional presidents to give a 
general resumé of the more important researches and discoveries 
of the year immediately preceding ; but, latterly, men in such 
positions have found themselves obliged by the ever-increasing 
rapidity of scientific discovery, and the consequent massing 
together of material, either to choose some educational theme, or 
to discourse on those aspects of the science to which they have 
themselves devoted special attention. 
Tt will, I think, be granted that to the members of our Asso- 
ciation any aspects or results of our science which have special 
reference to Australasia should be of peculiar interest, and I 
propose therefore to-day, in the course of a very brief address, 
first to inquire into some of the more important results which 
