Iviii President's Address 



were now abandoned to foreign hands. Nothing, I must 

 own, would give me greater pleasure than to see the Colony 

 of Victoria, taking its share in a work, which would confer 

 such great and lasting glory. Small comparatively in 

 number as its inhabitants are, they have not shrunk from 

 far more arduous and expensive undertakings. They did 

 not think it necessary to await Imperial aid, to explore the 

 unknown regions of this great southern division of the 

 earth. Why should they feel more unequal to the task of 

 exploring the heavens above them ? Let no one say that 

 expenditure so incurred would be useless. The people of 

 Victoria have shown, in the case both of exploration and of 

 the International Exhibition, that they know how to value 

 such an argument at its true worth ; and they must have 

 since acquired the proud consciousness that the leading part 

 they took in both transactions, has done much to dispel false 

 notions as to their social condition, and to enhance the re- 

 putation of the colony in the eyes of Europe. 



It is impossible, moreover, to foresee the results of scien- 

 tific investigations, or to estimate beforehand their probable 

 value in a material point of view. Experiments on the 

 nature of solar light, have, for example, within the last year 

 or two, not merely led to a clearer idea of the composition of 

 the sun, but to the totally unexpected discovery of three new 

 metals. 



Another illustration of unforeseen advantages may 

 be found in the fact, that it was owing entirely to the 

 knowledge recently obtained of the interior, that the dele- 

 gates at the late Intercolonial Conference, were enabled to 

 consider an overland route for the anglo- Australian electric 

 telegraph feasible, and even to discuss the direction it should 

 take, in full assurance, that by dispensing with some 

 hundreds of miles of submarine cable, a larger saving would 



