XVlll 



Island and found it to be (speaking from memory) lOdeg. SOmin. E, In 

 Melbourne the variation was 8deg. 43min. E., and increasing l^min. annually. 

 It was most important that the variation of the compass should be accurately 

 determined in different parts of Tasmania, because there certainly was a 

 difference, and the land surveyors always used the Magnetic North, which 

 was likely to lead to inextricable confusion hereafter. H6 believed that the 

 trigonometric survey of Tasmania had never been completed, and felt 

 certain that a great deal of the work would require to be gone over again, 

 because he knew from experience that the points had not been preserved. 

 In Victoria, stone towers, or strong wooden structures, preserved a centre 

 over which a staff was erected. He was quite sure that all the members 

 present felt grateful to His Excellency for the trouble he had taken in pre- 

 paring a paper for the meeting, and for calling attention to a manifest 

 deficiency. 



Mr. J. M. Clarke, while thanking His Excellency for calling attention to 

 so important a subject, could add but little to what had been said by such 

 practical men as Mr. Grant and Captain Stanley. His experience in the field 

 was very limited, but speaking from more than 20 years' experience in ofiBce 

 work, collating surveys made from the early days of the colony to the pre- 

 sent time, he could say that the discrepancies which are perpetually arising 

 must tend to litigation, and are gradually causing great and increasing con- 

 fusion in the charts of the colony. 



Mr. Stephens said that though he could not lay claim to much practical 

 or theoretical acquaintance with the business of surveying, or the question 

 of magnetic variation, it had been impossible for him to avoid seeing some- 

 thing of the difficulties which are a necessary consequence of a system of 

 survey conducted on magnetic lines ; and he had been informed upon good 

 authority that serious complications were continually occurring through the 

 want of accord between the representation of surveyed lines on the county 

 maps, and their actual position. If the trigonometrical stations established 

 by the late Mr. Sprent had been carefully maintained, like those of the 

 geodetic survey of Victoria, the difiiculty of reconstructing the system of 

 surveys would have been greatly lessened ; but many of them have been 

 utterly destroyed, and probably in no single instance would it be possible 

 to determine accurately the central point of the original station. The 

 prominence given to the subject in the paper read by His Excellency, than 

 whom we could not have a more competent authoritj'', Avould probably lead 

 to some satisfactory result. 



Further discussion followed, in which Mr. Justice Dobson took part, 

 with the Chairman and the previous speakers. 



Mr. Stephens read " Notes on the proposal for establishing a ' Class 

 Ground' for typical plants, in the Society's Gardens." 



Mr. F. Abbott stated that the question of the formation of a class 

 ground of typical plants had been before the Council of the Society on 

 previous occasions, the late Rev, W, W. Spicer having been deputed 

 to confer with him on the subject. He (Mr. Abbott) pointed out the 

 difficulties in the way here, and, after going fully into the matter, it was 

 considered that the time had not arrived for commencing such an 

 arrangement. When writing on this matter some years ago he had 

 expressed his opinion that however valuable natural arrangement might 

 be for educational purposes, it was of but little interest to the general public, 

 and except in places where it was utilised for the advancement of botanical 

 science, it had better not be undertaken. In this opinion he was 

 strengthened by a recent visit to the class ground of the Melbourne Uni- 

 versity, which is claimed as being one of the best kept in the colonies, 

 and must confess to a feeling of disappointment at the appearance of the 

 grounds, which were certainly the reverse of attractive. Not only were 

 plants the most incongi'uous brought into juxtaposition, but many of 

 them were languishing and others had died out. From Dr. Schomburgk 



