336 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 



The cost of destroying our timber was estimated at 2s. 6d. per 

 ton, and at this rate it had cost us £7,500,000 to destroy 

 60,000,000 tons of timber. If this timber had been properly used, 

 it would nave been worth 10s. a ton, or £30,000,000, the present 

 capital value of Tasmania.'' 



The amount of material wasted at saw mills suitaole for pulp 

 making must be enormous. 



Bactehiology. 



To Dr. E. Cuthbert Hall belongs the credit of carrying out a 

 bacteriological investigation on the bactericidal power of certain 

 eucalyptus oils and their constituents, the whole being embodied 

 m a thesis presented to the University of New South Wales in 

 in 1904. No therapeutical investigation in this direction appears 

 to have been undertaken since that date. The outcome of this re- 

 search proved that the constituent considered most eflBicacious by a 

 B. P. Standard is not so, but that other constituents such as 

 piperitone, phellandrene, eudesmol, were very much more so. 



This is a source of much discussion amongst eucalyptus oil 

 manufacturers, who are moving, and have moved, for an altera- 

 tion in the B.P. It is now a desideratum for further therapeutic 

 investigation into the constituents of eucalyptus oils, but of course 

 this can only be done by medical men. 



(A) COMMITTEE FOR THE BIOLOGICAL AND HYDRO 

 GRAPHICAL STUDY OF THE NEW ZEALAND COAST. 



(See Vol. XIII. , p. S62.) 



List of Members. — Prof. W. B. Benham, M.A., F.R.S. ; A. 

 Hamilton; Prof. A. P. W. Thomas, M.A., F.L.S. ; G. M. Thom- 

 son, M P., F.L.S. ; Edgar R. Waite, F.L.S. ; and Prof. Charles 

 Chilton; M.A., D.Sc. (Hon. Sec. and Convener). 



Kepokt. 



As the operations of the Committee are so dependent upon 

 opportunity, its v/ork must, of necessity, be subject to considerable 

 fluctuations. In the previous report the facilities for research 

 afforded by three expeditions were recorded, namely, the New 

 Zealand Government trawling expedition, 1907; the expedition 

 fitted out by the Canterbury Philosophical Institute to the Sub- 

 Ai'tarctic islands of New Zealand, and the private excursion 

 to the V7est Coast sounds. % 



