4 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



fii'st meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, we should remember that first effort to 

 promote science in a country so remote from the home of 

 science. It is difficult now to form any idea of the condition of 

 society in Australia when Sir Thomas Brisbane landed, and 

 nothing but the habit of disregarding difficulties, whicli a long 

 military experience had taught him, would have made it possible 

 in his mind to form a scientific society under such circumstances. 

 But he had been so accustomed to go into strange places and 

 make his own surroundings that it appeared to him possible to do 

 the same here. He landed in the end of November, entered upon 

 his official duties on December 1, 1821, and by January 2 following- 

 he had found out the only scientific men in the colony, formed 

 them into the Philosopliical Society of Australia, and liad the 

 first paper read. He never seems to have anticipated any difficulty 

 ill managing this handful of civilians, who, however, soon got 

 beyond his control. His own enthusiasm for science was very 

 remarkable. In the midst of the harassing marches and all the 

 perils of the gi'eat continental war in which he bore a part, even 

 when he had to sleep six nights in the snow witli nothing but his 

 overcoat to cover him, and found himself frozen to the ground 

 each moi'ning, and once with 900 men frozen to death around 

 him, he always had his astronomical instruments in his baggage,, 

 and brought them into use whenever there was lialf a cliance. It 

 was this intense love for science, coupled with his military ideas,, 

 which made him so anxious to get all the scientific men around 

 him in a duly organised society, each to do his duty rigidly or 

 suffer the consequences. But with all his enthusiasm he soon 

 found that a small army of scientific workers was not so manage- 

 able as the armies he had been accustomed to. The members of" 

 this first Australian Society, according to Judge Field, were : — • 

 Alexander Berry, Henry Grattan Douglas, M.D., Baron Field 

 (Judge), Major Goulburn (Colonial Secretary), Captain Irwin 

 (Bengal N.I.), Captain P. P. King, John Oxley (Surveyor- 

 General), Charles Stargard Rumker (Astronomer), Edward 

 Wolstencraft, His Excellency Sir Thomas Biisbane, K.C.B., 

 F.R.S., president. I find no record of the rules of this society, 

 excepting one, and that was if a member failed to read a paper 

 when his turn came he forfeited =£10. They met at each other's 

 houses in turn, and the only refreshment allowed was a cup 

 of coffee and a biscuit. It seems that the society was more 

 of a mutual friendly association or scientific club than a formal 

 society. At that time there was no public library, and but one 

 bookseller for the whole of Australia ; so the members catalogued 

 their books and lent them to one another. With such a strong 

 incentive to write papers, there can be no doubt that meetings 

 seldom lapsed for want of a paper, but they were not published 

 in proceedings, and the only existing record is given by Judge 



