Royal Society of Ca$mania. 



ABSTRACT OR RROCEEDINGS. 

 MAY 8th, 1906. 



The first meeting of the present session 

 of the Royal Society of Tasmania was 

 lielcl in the society's rooms on May 8 

 in the pi-esence of a large and fashionable 

 audience. Among those present were His 

 Excelieucy and Lady E'deline Strickland, 

 Mr. George Browne, I.S.O., Private Secre- 

 tary, Lady Chelmsford, Sir Elliott and 

 Lady Lewis, the Premier and Mrs. Evans, 

 the Mayor and Mrs Crisp, Colonel and 

 Mrs. Mackenzie, the members of the 

 Council of the Royal SocLety— Messrs. A. 

 G. Webster (chairman), R. M. Johnston, 

 I.S.O.. Bernard Shaw, I.S.O., Russell 

 Young, G. E. Moore, M.H.A., Hon Dr. 

 G. H. Butler, M.L.C., Professor Neil 

 Smith, M.A., Colonel W. V. Legge, R.A.— 

 Hons. W. H. Burgess, N. Ewing, C. E. 

 Davies, M.L.C., Mrs. Davies, Miss Marie 

 Davies, Senator Cobson, Dr. Gerard 

 Smith, Mr. P. S. Se.ager, Professors Mc- 

 Eougall and Ritz, etc., etc. 



The Secretary (Mr. Alex. Morton") pre- 

 sented His Excellency with a handsomely 

 bound volume of the proceedings of the 

 Royal Society, and read apologies for non- 

 attendance from the Venerable Arch- 

 bishop Murphy (written in a beautifully 

 clear and legible hand), and Mr. T. 

 Stephens, M.A., F.G.S., one of the vice- 

 presidents of the society. 



Urs. E. A. Rodway and R. D. Campbell, 

 and Mr. P. Lockwood, were then elected 

 members of the Royal Society. 



While the ballot wa.s proceeding, the 

 scr-retary drew attention to a fine water- 

 coiuur painting which had just been re- 

 ceived from New Zealand, of the Notornis 

 Hochstetteri, the Takahe of the Maori. 

 This, the secretary explained, was the 

 rarest of existing New Zealand birds, and 

 wa;^ considered to be extinct until the 

 capture of a specimen in 1888, of which 

 this was a drawing. The first li\-iiig bird 

 was caught in 1847 in Dusky Bay. Soon 

 after a second was obtained in Thompson 

 Sound. Both were now in the British 

 Museum. A third was captured near Lake 

 Te Anau, and was now in the Dresden 

 Museum. The bird was flightless, and its 

 nearest ally was the Pakeko (Porphyrio 

 melanotus). 



His Excellency then delivered the fol- 

 lowing' presidential address : — 



"SOME DEVELOPMENTS IN 1905-S 

 CONDUCIVE TOTASMANIAN PRO- 

 GRESS." 



Mr. Vice-president, Ladies, and Gentle- 

 men,— It devolves on me, as president of 

 the Royal Society, to open the proceed- 

 ings of a new session with an address of 

 a scientific character, and I propose, on 

 this occasion, to bring to your notice 

 a few of the discoveries and developments 

 of the j-ear 1905-1906, which have some 

 bearing on the future progress of Tas- 

 mania. The beginning of 1905 witnessed 

 a continuing rise in the price of tin, cop- 

 per, and other metals, which was then 

 full of hope; few, however, expected that 

 the increase would continue, and that ex- 

 ceptionally high prices should be 

 sustained for so long a period. Believing, 

 as I do, that the progress of Tasmania in 

 the near future is closely connected with 

 mining, the causes of the high price of 

 copper and tin invite incjuirj-. It should 

 be noted that these prices are given in 

 terms of gold, and as the supply of gold 

 from South Africa and other sources has 

 been rapidly increasing, it would appear 

 that, to some extent, the exchange value 

 of gold has depreciated, rather than that 

 the prices of copper and tin have appre- 

 ciated. This circumstance modifies, to 

 some extent, all other explanations. 

 Nevertheless, the explanation which is 

 commonly accepted to account for the 

 high price of copper, is the rapid develop- 

 ment of electric tramways, telegraphs, 

 and other industrial undertakings, for 

 which copper is still without a rival. 

 This industrial development no doubt 

 exists, and is likely to continue for some 

 years at a rapid rate, but it is not suffi- 

 cient to account for the upward move- 

 ment of price. It is stated that China 

 has been issuing a new copper currency 

 which has absorbed no less than 60,000 

 tons of copper in the period under re- 

 view. Silver blocks called "shoes" change 

 hands by weight in China, and it is, 

 therefore, probable that a considerable 

 amount of the copper coinage will every 

 year be dealt with as metal, and worked 

 up into trinkets and articles of domestic 

 use, thus adding to the permanent de- 

 mand for copper. Nevertheless, the bal- 



