for the year 1879. xxv 



and use in manufacture, has increased the value of the 

 collection in an educational point of view immensely. The 

 school of technology continues in full operation, and the 

 members of this Society have frequent opportunities of 

 judging, from the papers contributed by its director and our 

 fellow-member, Mr. Newbery, what good work is done in 

 the laboratories there in mineralogy, metallurgy, and tech- 

 nical chemistry. The classes have been well attended, for 

 on inquiry I find that the number of pupils in elementary 

 chemistry was 250; in practical chemistry, 30; engineer- 

 ing, 23 ; telegraphy, 64 ; and modelling, 6. 



In conclusion, I would return for a moment to a matter of 

 moment to this Society. Some little time since an article 

 appeared in one of the weekly papers, entitled, " Science in 

 Australia," in which the scientific men of Melbourne are 

 accused of apathy j and this Society, not only of doing little 

 scientific work, but not publishing what it does do till years 

 after. The writer, perhaps, like Rip Van Winkle, has been 

 asleep, and imagines things have stood still for a decade or so, 

 or he would know that for nearly three years our transactions 

 have been published every month, or at least at very short in- 

 tervals ; or, more likely, perhaps, occupied himself in some 

 scientific byway, he cannot recognise the work done in wider 

 fields. However, it may be as well to ask ourselves if such 

 criticisms fairly apply to those supposed to represent science 

 in Melbourne. Is that work by which the great forces of 

 nature, the mechanism, laws, and order of creation are 

 gradually opened as a book to the world, revealing to man- 

 kind the endless resources at his disposal, so neglected in 

 this prosperous community as to give grounds for such a 

 censure ? There are very few in these colonies who choose 

 so-called science as an occupation or amusement that are 

 sufficiently endowed with tfie world's goods to permit a 

 devotion of much time to original research ; there are, never- 

 theless, a great number who, after their daily bread-winning 

 labour is over, devote themselves to scientific study, and it 

 is surprising how much valuable addition to our knowledge 



