Ixxvi. president's address. 



with success on a small scale. In this country I fear we should 

 be badly off in a year like 1912. The last discovery of 

 petroleum appears to be in New Guinea, where an extensive 

 bed of oilbearing sandstones was found by, I believe, an 

 Australian Expedition to that island. 



Geography. 



Last year I had to record the successful journey to the 

 South Pole of Captain Amundsen ; this year we can claim 

 the same honour for an Englishman, Captain Scott, but 

 with results to himself and his brave comrades which we all 

 deplore. From his journal we learn all that they did and 

 suffered under a series of difficulties and misfortunes which 

 would seem unusual even in those inhospitable regions, in 

 which, as in the Arctic zone, so many have lost their lives 

 without having had the satisfaction of reaching their goal. 

 Amongst the results of this unfortunate expedition are 

 additions to our geological knowledge of the neighbourhood 

 of the Pole, from whence the party brought back specimens 

 of the rocks, confirming the existence of coal, and exhibiting 

 fossils of Cambrian and other early formations. In the 

 results of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition there 

 have now been found to be no less than 18 new genera and 

 263 new species of marine animals collected between the 

 surface and a depth of 2,000 fathoms, the novelties occurring 

 especially at the greater depths. 



Anthropology and Archeology. 



At the British Association Meeting the President's Address 

 in this section consisted of a somewhat speculative discourse 

 on the evolution of man, who, he considered, could be traced 



