4 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



a most remarkable extent embodied information and dis- 

 cussions whicli were not likely to have been produced as 

 the result of any of our local scientific organizations. The 

 authors seem to have felt it incumbent on them to place 

 their subjects in the environment of Australasia, and not 

 in relation to the colony they happened to represent. This, 

 I take it, is the first truly effective step towards Federation 

 which has yet been achieved, and I trust that all our 

 members will continue to be imbued with this spirit. 

 Politicians should take this well to heart. Let them con- 

 tinue to aid all efforts that will tend to bring scientific 

 accumulations in these colonies into a common store, so 

 that each may discover for what purpose it has been best 

 adapted by Nature ; and, by paying proper political respect 

 in fiscal policy to one another, each may prosper to the full 

 extent of its natural advantages. But it is not alone in 

 the value of the papers communicated that the Associa- 

 tion contributes to the advance of true civilisation in the 

 colonies. The face-to-face conference, the personal con- 

 tact, of the active workers in different lines of scientific 

 work, must greatly facilitate the more thorough under- 

 standing of the work which has been done and of that 

 which has still to be done. 



A vague idea, simmering in the brain of one scientist 

 who thinks light of it because it has no special application 

 in his particular environment, may, by personal converse, 

 flash into important results in the mind of another who 

 has had the difficulties facing him, but without the happy 

 thought. It would be rather interesting for some one with 

 leisure to endeavour to recount how many great discoveries 

 have eventuated in this manner. 



In casting my thoughts for a particular subject on which 

 to address the Association I felt perplexed. Presidents of 

 similar associations in the Old World, who are in constant 

 contact with the actual progress in scientific thought, feel 

 that a mere recital of the achievements during their pre- 

 vious term is sufficient to command interest ; but in the 

 colonies most of us are cut off from personal converse with 

 the leading minds by whom the scientific afflatus is com- 



