xxxiv President's Address 



On April the 30tb, Mr. Pirani read a paper on " The 

 Laws of Motion. At this meeting, Mr. Ellery reported 

 on his trial of Mr. Kernot's method of obtaining uniform 

 rotation, promising a further trial. 



On May the 28th, Mr. Kernot read some notes on 

 " Timber Structures." 



On July the 2nd, Mr. Henderson read " Notes on 

 Ventilation, exhibiting a new form of Ventilator." 

 Mr. Kernot gave an investigation of the Strains of an 

 ordinary bow-string Roof-truss. 



On July the 9th, Mr. H. M. Andrew read " Notes on 

 Elementary Geometry, being a geometrical investigation 

 of maxima and minima of functions of one independent 

 variable," 



On October the 1st, Mr. Cook gave an account of " Some 

 Effects of Lightning at Mr. Clement Hodgkinson's house 

 at East Melbourne." Mr. Henderson introduced the subject 

 of the Dennet Arch, contending that its action was that 

 of a beam rather than an arch, and Mr. Foord exhibited 

 a " Peculiar Elastic form of Carbon deposited from Coal 

 Gas." 



The foregoing list accounts for eight out of the ten 

 meetings of this section, the two other meetings being 

 devoted to discussions and general business. 



Passing from the affairs of the Society, let us now take 

 a cursory glance at the wider field of general scientific 

 research. In the first place, I propose that we should 

 bestow a few minutes attention upon recent astronomical 

 work, especially that performed at our own Observatory. 

 For this purpose, I avail myself of information afforded 

 by Mr. E. J. White, the Acting Government Astronomer, 

 who states that, " During the last twelve months, at the 

 Melbourne Observatory a very large amount of work has been 

 done. With the transit circle there have been obtained 2,064 



