INAUGURAL ADDRBSS. 15 



which afford excellent sport to the angler, and will doubtless, 

 as time goes on, prove a considerable source of wealth to the 

 Island, not only by introducing a new and palatable item of 

 food supply, but by attracting to our shores many visitors 

 in pursuit of sport. In connexion with this subject, I cannot 

 refrain from referring to the munificence of the Honorable J. 

 W. Agnew, (of whose other services to the Royal Society in 

 various directions I have already more than once made 

 mention in' this address), who, entirely at his own cost, secured 

 the introduction of an enormous supply of salmon ora in 

 1888, which was stripped from the parent fish and brought 

 to Tasmania by Sir Thomas Brady, and deposited in our 

 breeding-places under his personal superintendence. We 

 are anxiously awaiting the result of this latest experiment, 

 and hope it will be the means of finally settling in the 

 affirmative the long and much debated question as to whether 

 or not the true Salmo talar is an inhabitant of the Tasmanian 

 waters. 



As regards the progress made in the knowledge of the 

 Geology of Tasmania during the last fifty years, I am indebted 

 to Mr. R. M. Johnston for the following particulars : — " The 

 influence of the Royal Society upon the development of the 

 Geology of Tasmania may be most fully expressed by the 

 statement that the whole of our present knowledge has been 

 either directly due to the investigations of its Members and 

 Associates, or has been derived from the material which they 

 have collected. Prior to the foundation of the Society, 

 Tasmania was a sealed book to the geologist. Nothing was 

 known of the rich mineral resources, whose development in 

 recent years has so largely added to our commercial prosperity. 

 The exact age, character, extent, relationship, and palaeontology 

 of its different systems of rocks had never engaged the 

 attention of a single scientific observer. Nor is this to be 

 wondered at when we consider the nature of the country and 

 its condition at this stage of its history. Its whole surface, 

 except the very limited clearings about the settlements, was 

 trackless, and, to a large extent, enveloped in dense and almost 

 impenetrable forest or scrub. Even between the two principal 

 centres of population, Hobart and Launceston, the means of 

 communication only six years previously were so defective 

 that the mails had to be carried by foot-post once a fortnight. 

 It can be imagined, therefore, that the pioneers of geological 

 explorations in Tasmania had to contend with difliculties 



