PRESIDENTS ADDRESS—SECTION E. 111 
member of more than one of the branches of the Royal Geo- 
graphical Society of Australasia, whose valuable life is a sacrifice 
to disease contracted in the ardour of exploratory investigation 
in the Malayan Peninsula and Northern Australia, too soon 
following the fate of his friend and coadjutor in the same expe- 
dition, the Rev. B. Scortechini, F.L.8., an ardent and accomp- 
lished student in the field of botany, swelling the roll of immortal 
names, martyrs to the cause of science and exploratory research, 
typitied by memories of such names as Leichardt, Burke, Wills, 
and many others—names to be handed down to the future 
posterity of our country as household words, luminous as examples 
of self-sacrifice in the cause of duty for future generations to 
revere and emulate. 
As the text of my inaugural address I have adopted, and I 
think I could not have followed a more profitable course, the 
form of a review of the progress of geographical research and 
literature during the period that has elapsed since the last 
assemblage of this Association, having regard primarily to our 
own part of the world, and then more generally to that of the 
world at large, viewing first the purely exploratory aspect as to 
what has been accomplished, what is presently in progress, and 
what may be anticipated in the future ; glancing cursorily at the 
results that may reasonably be expected to follow scientifically, 
educationally and commercially, and including the doings of other 
kindred associations. 
And here I may pause to remark that in dealing with the 
matter that I address myself to, it is dithicult, nay, almost impos- 
sible, to dilate at length upon such a subject without to some 
extent traversing ground already exhaustively discussed in the 
numerous addresses recently delivered to various cognate assem- 
bles upon similar occasions to the present, and indeed, I fear, 
without leaving some opening for a charge of plagiarism. It 
would be superfluous on my part to attempt to enter into an 
exposition of the meaning or object of the science of geography 
or of its necessity or advantages. The first has been too 
frequently expounded by abler hands, and the latter is surely 
obvious to the meanest understanding. To repeat would be 
wearisome and profitless. 
EXPLORATORY. 
The greatest achievement in the way of exploration and dis- 
covery in our part of the world is unquestionably the triumphant 
success of Sir Wm. McGregor’s expedition for the ascent of the 
highest peak of the Owen Stanley range of mountains in S.E. 
New Guinea, named by him Mount Victoria—a point hitherto 
considered almost inaccessible—and the identifying and naming 
other mountains in the immediate neighbourhood, with their 
