12 
MINUTES of the Annual General Meeting of the 
Royau Sociery or Tasmania, held at the Museum on 
Friday, February 5th, 1886,—Tuos. Stepunns, Esq., 
M.A., F.G.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. 
THE under-mentioned gentlemen were elected Corresponding 
Members; viz.—William A. Haswell, Esq., M.A., B.Sc. 
Edin., Sydney University, N.S.W.; J. V. R. Swan, Esq., 
U.S. Consul, St. Petersburg, Russia. James Rule, Esq., 
Senior Inspector of Schools, Tasmania ; and Edw. A. Counsel, 
Esq., Hobart, were elected Fellows. 
In the absence of the Hon. J. W. Agnew, M.D., M.E.C., 
Hon. Secretary, the Chairman called upon Mr. A. Morton, 
Assistant Secretary and Librarian, to read the Annual Report. 
Mr. Belstead, in moving the adoption of the Report, 
referred to the handsome legacies bequeathed to the Society 
by the late Dr. Milligan, and trusted it would stimulate other 
wealthy men in our midst to follow his example. He also 
made reference to the loss the Society had sustained in the 
death of the late Mr. John Swan. 
Rev. J. W. Simmons, in seconding the motion, expressed 
his pleasure at the numerously attended meetings of the past 
session, but deplored the want of necessary space for the use 
of the microscope in illustrating various papers. 
Mr. R. A. Bastow, F.L.S., remarked, with the permission 
of the Chairman, he intended early in the session to read a 
paper ‘On the Science of Sanitation,” illustrated by diagrams. 
He went on to remark that in this colony we have a Public 
Health Act, as good an Act as could possibly be framed for. 
the conservation of the health of the community, and now 
that the Parliament had done their part so well it remains for 
the community to carry out the Act in all its requirements. 
As yet it appears as though the science of sanitation were 
totally unknown in the colony except by some few gentlemen 
who have made the science a study, and unless the eyes of the 
public are opened, the dangers existing in their very homes, in 
the air they breathe, in the food they eat, in the rooms they 
sleep in, and everywhere outside their homes, in the drains and 
accumulations of filth visible at all times in many of our streets, 
the annual death rate will still continue over 24 per 1000, 
instead of 12 per 1000, for the registration district of Hobart,— 
