Ivi President's Address 



troduction of new plants, and pressing forward the description 

 of the indigenous flora. His progress in the latter depart- 

 ment is evidenced by the third volume of his Fragmenta, 

 which has just seen the light, as well as by the preparation 

 for the second volume of his Plants of Victoria, which he 

 has not suffered to be interrupted by the co-operation he is 

 affording to Mr. Bentham in the work on Australian botany 

 which that eminent botanist is bringing out at home. 



Lastly, let me refer to a sign of progress which all lovers 

 of science will hail with pleasure, the completion of the new 

 Observatory — a most convincing proof, if others were want- 

 ing, of the continued interest taken by the Government and 

 the representatives of the people of Victoria in scientific 

 pursuits. The building, admirably situated outside the 

 Botanic Garden reserve, is furnished with fixed meridian 

 and prime vertical instruments, superior, I believe, to any 

 hitherto employed in the southern hemisphere ; and it 

 contains ample accommodation not merely for astronomical but 

 meteorological observations. If anything, indeed, can com- 

 pensate for the loss we are about to sustain in the departure 

 from our shores of Professor Neumayer, on the completion of 

 the magnetic survey to which he has mainly devoted his 

 attention, it will be found in the increased economy and 

 efficiency which may be looked for from the combination of 

 both these branches under so competent a head as Mr. 

 Ellery, the Government astronomer. One thing alone is 

 still wanting to render the Melbourne Observatory complete, 

 and that is an equatorially-mounted telescope of large optical 

 power. Upwards of six years ago the establishment of a 

 first-class observatory was pointed out by Professor Wilson, 

 — in a paper on the Southern Nebulae, — read before the then 

 Philosophical Institute, — to be but a requisite preliminary 

 to the still grander undertaking of erecting a four-foot 

 reflector for the purpose of minutely observing and mapping 



