xlii President's Address 



The more precise astronomical work undertaken by our 

 Observatory — the accurate determination of the positions of 

 the stars of the Southern skies — is progressing well, and the 

 value of the contributions of the Melbourne Observatory to 

 stellar astronomy, especially that pertaining to the Southern 

 heavens, is now fally acknowledged by scientific individuals 

 and societies of Europe and America. Unusual disturbances 

 in terrestrial magnetism and frequent occurrence of auroras 

 have marked the past year, and have presented a most 

 favourable opportunity of comparing the simultaneousness of 

 magnetic disturbances in both northern and southern 

 hemispheres. 



Professor Heis, of Munster, in Westphalia, whose name is 

 associated with this branch of physics, having obtained from 

 Mr. Carl Moerlin, the second assistant at our Observatory, 

 the dates at which auroras had been seen here, as well as 

 the times of magnetic disturbances on which no aurora was 

 seen, has lately returned to him a pamphlet containing a 

 comparison of such occurrences in Melbourne with similar 

 ones in Europe, from which the interesting facts appear that 

 whenever an aurora australis was seen here the aurora 

 borealis was also seen in some part of the northern hemis- 

 phere, and the dates of great magnetic disturbances in 

 Melbourne, on which, however, no aurora australis was 

 observed, coincided in most cases either with great magnetic 

 disturbances in the northern hemisphere or with the 

 occurrence of the am'ora borealis combined. I can" hardly 

 pass over this circumstance without pointing it out as an 

 instance of the importance of combined observations of 

 physical phenomena of this character, and of the greater 

 results that come out of a free communication between 

 scientific men engaged in research in different parts of the 

 world. 



The members will be sorry to learn that the progress of our 



