xxxii President's Address 



Garden reserve, which seems admirably adapted from its 

 commanding situation, the absence of buildings, and the 

 nature of the geological formations below, for the erection of 

 a National Observatory, on a scale suited to the wealth and 

 importance of this province. 



The interest attaching to the record of the daily atmo- 

 spheric phenomena is everywhere increasing in proportion as 

 we seem to have arrived at the threshold of great discoveries, 

 through the ascertained correspondence between the mag- 

 netic storms and the so-called spots on the sun's disc — a fact 

 long since suspected by Schwabe, but placed beyond all 

 doubt by the concurrent testimony of independent observa- 

 tions at the widely-distant colonial capitals of Canada and 

 Tasmania. As the Observatory at Hobart Town, which 

 became so famous under the superintendence of one 

 of our members, Captain Kay, RN., is no longer supported 

 by the Imperial Government, it behoves us all the more to 

 keep up a similar establishment here. 



Apart, however, from merely scientific considerations like 

 these, the maintenance of a thoroughly efficient Observatory 

 seems essential for the successful prosecution of the geodetic 

 survey now in progress, under the superintendence of two 

 eminent members of the Royal Society, Mr. Ligar, the sur- 

 veyor general, and Mr. Ellery, the astronomical observer ; 

 for such an undertaking must very much depend for its 

 accuracy on frequent and correct observations of the heavenly 

 bodies. 



As some doubt has been expressed whether this method 

 of land surveying, by dividing the country into squares, with 

 sides conformable to the geographic figures formed by the 

 intersections of the meridians of longitude by the parallels of 

 latitude — a system now first introduced into British territory 

 — is as reliable and enduring as the old plan of taking the 

 bearings of conspicuous natural objects and laying out the 



