6 



red hot by hammering it, so can they be made to heat a 

 piece of platinum foil red hot by impinging upon it off a 

 reflector properly disposed. Into the field of physics and 

 dynamics opened by these exquisite experiments, by which I 

 have seen the E-oyal Society of London almost entranced ; into 

 the behaviour of these bodies under the influence of electric or 

 magnetic currents, I am not in the least competent to enter. 

 I only refer to them as matters as new, as they are profoundly 

 interesting ; and suggestive of our own need for physical 

 instruction to keep up with the discoveries of the day. 



The 8iivvey Department. — To pass to what is more germane 

 to our business. It is, I think, from this Society that the 

 resj^onsible guides of public affairs may reasonably expect to 

 hear from time to time of subjects whose importance, being 

 scientific rather than political, is not likely to be pressed upon 

 them by outside interest. Among these I venture to name 

 the imperfection of our county maps, especially those which 

 include new mineral districts, and the poverty of the topo- 

 graphical information they convey. Indeed, I must go a step 

 further, and say that from a scientific point of view, the 

 organisation of our Survey department cannot be pronounced 

 satisfactory. The ofiice of Surveyor- General being merged 

 in that of Minister of Lands and Works, there is no longer a 

 professional chief to direct and combine the work of the 

 numerous district surveyors discharging duties of great 

 present, and still greater future, importance. Under such 

 circumstances, it will be no wonder if serious discrepancies 

 are found to exist hereafter between surveys of different dates, 

 or that we ask in vain for a good map of the country within 

 20 miles of Hobart. The maps accompanying Mr. Gould's 

 Geological Eeports give more detail than the county maps ; 

 but besides being mere sketches, and of a fragmentary 

 character, they are scarcely to be procured. These reports I 

 find scattered through no less than twelve bulky volumes of 

 Parliamentary papers, and it appears to me that the time has 

 come for collecting and reprinting them in a more convenient 

 form. 



Meteorological Beturns. — The advancing years and infirmities 

 of our Fellow, Mr. Francis Abbott, F. R. A. S., have, as 

 the Society was informed by the last report of the Council, 

 led to the discontinuance of the meteorological register 

 kept by him for the long term of 35 years, an in- 

 stance of self-devotion and gratuitous service to science 

 which it would be hard to surpass. The only register now 

 regularly kept that I know of, except those at the lighthouses, 

 is that of Mr. W. E. Shoobridge, at New Norfolk, commenced 

 in 1874. We are much behind other colonies in this respect. 

 Meteorology requires more and more a multiplication of ob- 



