PAST, PRESENT, AND PUTUEE OP THE AUSTRALIAN FLORA. 137 



Mr. Pethkrwick. — I slaould like just to say a few words as to 

 the work that lias been done by an individual like the author, 

 working quietly and unassumingly for fifty years in Paramatta. 

 His work has been good, although his name is not published 

 attached to any very great work like that of Hooker or von 

 Mueller or Bentham, still he has in his way accumulated informa- 

 tion which has been made use of in tbe larger works of the 

 country. Dr. Woolls went to Australia more than sixty years ago, 

 I think. He had written little works and was a student of botany, 

 and went out there to what was a comparatively new field of 

 exploration at that time, when, as he says in his paper, nothing or 

 very little had been published except Brown's Prodromus. That, 

 of course, compared with the later works, was very small indeed. 

 Dr. Woolls settled down at Paramatta, and there he has been at 

 work for fifty years, and although he has not published any very 

 great authoritative work, his influence has been exerted in a quiet 

 way, and there are hundreds of amateur botanists in Australia 

 who owe their incentive to his good influence. 



Professor Orchard. — We have all been very much interested 

 in what the author has stated on pp. 115 and 116 as to the 

 botanical knowledge possessed by the aborigines, and the great 

 extent to which they seem to have made use of the indigenous 

 plants of Australia. That is a ciircumstance which points to the 

 conclusion, tolerably evident indeed on other grounds, that the 

 primeval doctors went to the vegetable, rather than to the animal, 

 world for their drugs and medicines. What Dr. Woolls states 

 on p. 127 with regard to the importance of the correction of 

 the nomenclature of botany applies, 1 think, not only to the 

 botany of Australia, but to that of other places as well. There can 

 be no doubt that the importance of nomenclature to the inductive 

 sciences is very much greater than we are apt to imagine, and the 

 names ought to be aids to the scientific memory. That is the 

 principal purpose, I apprehend, of any scientific nomenclature — 

 not, as Dr. Woolls truly says, to make invidious distinctions 

 between one worker and another by bringing into use personal 

 names. The names should be distinctly contributions to the more 

 easy acquisition and better retention of scientific knowledge. 



Mr. Slater. — Mr. President, concerning the great subject of 

 artesian wells, I have received some original communications from 

 my youngest son, who was engaged for eight years in Queensland 



