president's address — SECTION B. 49 



seemed to act as the sign-post pointing to the Elysian fields 

 of new^researches, — who, by their help, counsel, and encourage- 

 ment, inspired the earnest labourer in the pursuit of truth, and 

 led him on to new discoveries !* 



The progress of Chemistry and Mineralogy in Australasia, 

 upon which it is my privilege to address you to-day, is, from 

 the nature of the circumstances, slow and beset with many 

 hindrances. And this chiefly because the greater ]:)ortion of 

 our energies are devoted to the estimation of the monetary 

 value of the natural and commercial products around us. 



Here, in this later-known part of our planet, we needs must 

 spend a great deal of our time in work that can only advance 

 science somewhat indirectly ; so that it might be said that 

 the record of the year with regard to original research-work, 

 were it given in its entirety, would read very much like 

 Falstafl"s hotel-bill, showing but a halfj)ennyworth of research 

 to an intolerable deal of drudgery. This, [ admit, must 

 necessarily be the case with most of n.s in a new country, 

 who, if not engaged in teaching and organisation, are com- 

 pelled to spend our time in assaying minerals, or else in the 

 pursuit of the agricultural, sanitary, or ci"iminal investigations 

 incidental to our rapidly-growing centres of population. 

 Chemists in Australia occupy places in the rear-guard of the 

 advancing army of science; and while it may not be our 

 fortune to be at the outposts skirmishing on the frontier of 

 the knowable, yet we have daily-recurring duties that are 

 none the less necessary for the wellbeing of society : thus, 

 at least, we may presume to say that we indirectly help for- 

 ward the general advancement of science. 



Still, some work has been done during the year in spite of 

 these drawbacks; and this includes the discovery of the alka- 

 loids brucine and strychnine in the fruits of Strycltnos psilo- 

 sperma, by Professor Kennie and Mr. Goyder, of Adelaide, 

 who find 0-32 per cent, of the mixed alkaloids in some 

 specimens sent them by Baron von Miieller. 



Additions to our knowledge of the Australian gums and 

 barks have been made by Mr. J. H. Maiden, of Sydney ; 

 the first gum recorded from one of the Tiliacese, or Linden- 

 blooms — a metarabic gum obtained from Echinocarpus 

 (Sloanea) Australis has been examined, also the gum of the 

 grass-tree and the resins in certain species of Pittosporum 

 and Araucario, while he finds the kinos of g)'eat aid in the 

 diagnosis of the dift'erent eucalypts. 



Conspicuous amongst Mr. Maiden's researches is his work 



