Section Ei 



GEOGRAPHY. 



Address by the President, 

 CAPTAIN PASCO, R.N. 



It is with unfeigned diffidence that 1 venture to accept the 

 position which such a distinguished member as Sir Wilham 

 Macgregor has (I am, as no doubt we are all, sorry to 

 say) been unable to occupy in propria persona. Sir William, 

 who first came prominently into notice by an act of con- 

 summate bravery some years since during a hurricane at Fiji, 

 when, at the risk of his life he nobly earned a decoration 

 which, in my humble estimation, is more to be coveted than 

 the Victoria Cross — viz., the Albert Medal — has latterly been 

 intrusted with the latest annexation of British Territory in 

 the Southern Hemisphere. Sir William's governing policy, 

 we are proud to say, follows closely in the lines of Sir 

 Stamford Raffles and Rajah Brooke among the tribes of the 

 Indian Archipelago, which are so nearly alUed to the 

 Papuans, in recognizing aboriginal claims and framing laws 

 for their protection. 



In addition to his noble character as a philanthropist, he has 

 specially commended himself to the Geographical Section of 

 this Association by his recent explorations in New Guinea, 

 where he has distinguished himself by his ascent of the 

 Owen Stanley Range. 



Allow me, then, at the outset to place on record the regret 

 of this Section that we are denied the presence of a more 

 worthy President. 



Instead of followino- the usual lines of Presidential 

 addresses by recapitulating geographical researches in various 

 parts of the world up to date, I desire, at the first meeting of 

 the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science 

 in Tasmania, briefly to recur to what may be considered as 

 the origin of geographical research, and how we, at the close 

 of this nineteenth century, are responsible for the exercise 

 of our energies. 



