THE PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 25T 



army of workers for this Society who will greatly add to its 

 success and usefulness. It is our earnest hope and desire that 

 this Society may flourish more and more. I need not 

 commend it to those who love science for its own sake, but 

 those whose other avocations may not permit of their personally 

 devoting time to research, or who may not have any bent 

 in that direction, will nevertheless by attendance at its 

 meetings and studying its proceedings, derive much pleasure 

 and profit, and experience a relaxation from their daily work 

 which carries no enervating tendencies with it. While to 

 those who judge everything from a material standpoint, I 

 would say, Do not forget that many of the investigations of 

 science, which is a main business of societies like this, lead 

 directly and indirectly to the opening up of new industries, 

 and to the development of existing ones, while they con- 

 tribute much to the comfort and, sometimes, even to the 

 extension of the duration of human existence. 



Mr. James Barnard, Y.P., said we have all, I am sure, 

 listened with equal pleasure and profit to the highly interesting 

 address with which we have been favoured by His Excellency 

 the President, reviewing the work of the Eoyal Society during 

 the session about to close ; and, if I interpret aright the feel- 

 ings and wishes of the Fellows present, they would desire not 

 only to thank His Excellency for his valuable paper, but also 

 to acknowledge their deep obligations to him for the unceasing 

 interest which he has shown in the Eoyal Society, as well as 

 for so regularly attending its evening meetings. 



Three sessions have now passed since His Excellency's 

 assumption of the Chair of the Society as its official President ;. 

 and I think it will not be denied that His Excellency has amply 

 fulfilled his expressed intention of attending all the meetings 

 he could, for I believe it has only been on some two or three 

 occasions during the whole of this long period that His 

 Excellency has been absent, and then arising from some 

 unavoidable cause. 



And here I cannot refrain from remarking upon an innovation 

 — and that of an especially gratifying character — which we owe 

 to His Excellency, and that is the admission of ladies to our 

 evening meetings, and which has procured for us the pleasure of 

 the frequent presence of the accomplished lady who is at the 

 head of society in Tasmania, and thus reviving the practice 

 that prevailed at the meetings of the original Tasmanian 

 Society more than forty years ago, at which that noble woman, 

 Lady Franklin was invariably present. 



Digressing for a moment to another subject, I would observe 

 that in politics intercolonial federation is believed to be the 



