377 



investigation o£ the general kind which in the issue will prove to 

 be of even greater importance and more "economic " than what 

 is commonly called " economic science." But I may perhaps 

 draw your attention once more to the fact (mentioned in our 

 annual report) of this Society having recently spent from its 

 funds in paying the travelling expenses of an agent, whom it 

 sent to report upon certain local matters of scientific interest at 

 a distance from Adelaide, and I draw your attention to it in 

 order to suggest the question whether the Government might not 

 fairly be asked to facilitate such investigations by jDermitting the 

 free use of its railways for a specified journey by a specified 

 person, say, under the condition of a certificate from the Council 

 of the Royal Society, that it was sought for the bona Jide ipiiripose 

 of desirable scientific exploration, which the person in question 

 was competent to make. It certainly seems a short-sighted policy 

 for a scientific Society to be obliged to pay travelling expenses 

 on Government railways out of its scanty funds in order to pro- 

 cure information that on public grounds it is most desirable 

 should be obtained. There can be no doubt that a very great 

 deal of our scientific work is rendered incomplete, and that facts 

 we desire to discover and observations which ought to be made are 

 lost, perhaps irrecoverably, because of the difficulty of procuring 

 reliable information as to the fauna of the remotest parts of the 

 colony, in which difficulty the cost of travelling is one of the 

 most formidable items ; and it is not within the means of this 

 Society to provide funds for the purpose on any sufficiently large 

 scale. 



I trust you will pardon me for having detained you so long- 

 listening to an address on a subject that is more or less outside 

 the special lines of work that most of the Fellows of our Society 

 are pursuing ; and I trust, too, that what I have said may prove 

 to have the effect of suggesting to the minds of some of our 

 Fellows who are not actively pursuing any scientific work, that 

 it really is important for natural science to be investigated and 

 pushed on with as speedily as possible ; a suggestion which might 

 well induce them to take up the study of some scientific matter 

 that has been as yet neglected on this continent, and so assist 

 the ultimate purpose of our Society even more satisfactorily than 

 they can do by their merely passive interest and pecuniary 

 support. 



