124 President's Address 



The whole of the south half of the floor is occupied by 

 the mining and metallurgical illustrations, all very fully 

 labelled and illustrated for public instruction. The collec- 

 tion of models of mining machinery far exceeds that of the 

 Government School of Mines in London, and was intended 

 by Professor M'Coy to facilitate the establishment of a school 

 of mines. 



A handsome gallery runs round the room, on which the 

 zoological collections are arranged according to a new plan, 

 by which the laws of representative species and centres of 

 creation are well illustrated. The great zoological regions of 

 the earth, in accordance with the most recent researches, are 

 inscribed on the walls ; and the collections of the inhabit- 

 tants of each kept by themselves, each group zoologically 

 arranged and fully labelled with order, family, genus, 

 species, and locality. The collections of Central and South 

 America occupy the west gallery, those of Central and 

 South Africa the east gallery, Central and South Asia the 

 north, Oceanica, &c., the south gallery, &c. 



Amongst the more interesting additions made last year, 

 are the finest series of the old and young gorillas known, 

 with their perfect skeletons ; bones of the dodo, sent by our 

 former president. Sir Henry Barkly, to Professor M'Coy ; 

 laniary teeth of Thylacolea, from near Geelong ; a splendid 

 series of the Psittacidse, newly collected by Mr. Wallace in 

 the islands north of Australia ; a specimen of Forster's great 

 Penguin, of which so few examples exist ; and the only 

 known specimen of the Pithecia Wurmhi, which approaches 

 in the head far nearer to man than the orang, chimpanzee, 

 or gorilla ; and lastly, the most perfect specimen known of 

 that excessively rare and interesting object, the Pentacrinus 

 caput-meduscB, the last living type of the stalked crinoidye 

 of geological early times. 



Our Public Libraiy, too, has acquired additional attrac- 



